MegaBuilds on the End of The Line

John Hill | 11. March 2026

Photo: Screenshot from “The Line in 2026: Why Construction Stopped” at MegaBuilds' YouTube channel

Construction of The Line, the 170-kilometer-long linear city unveiled in 2021 that was intended to house 9 million residents and be the centerpiece of Saudi Arabia's larger NEOM project, has stopped. In an 11-minute film, the team at MegaBuilds lays out why the project ended and ponders what the future holds for the rest of NEOM.

Last fall's news that The Line stopped construction—undone by the laws of physics and finance, per architect Alison Killing at the Financial Times—was probably met with many reactions, but doubtless surprise was not one of them. While reactions to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's announcement of The Line in early 2021 were enthusiastic, by the time animated renderings of the project were revealed a year and a half later, the opposite was the case, with people describing it as crazy and dystopian, and predicting it would result in an abandoned construction site. The last is the way things look now, based on the satellite photography and other views presented in the MegaBuilds video embedded below, which gives a good by-the-numbers look at why The Line failed, while also guessing at what the future may hold for the other Neom projects in the region.