Saudi Arabia To Spend $1T On A 75 Mile-Long Sidescraper Dubbed The Mirror Line

New details on The Mirror Line, a massive construction project in Saudi Arabia, have emerged.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also chairman of the NEOM Board of Directors,  unveiled the designs Monday, July 25, touting it as a "civilizational revolution that puts humans first."

According to the Wall Street Journal, the so-called horizontal skyscraper will cost a whopping $1 trillion and consist of two, carbon-neutral buildings with shiny mirror-like walls 1,600 feet tall. It is expected to stretch for 75 miles across the desert city Neom and support a linear community of nearly five million people.

The Mirror Line, or simply The Line, will run from the Gulf of Aqaba, across the desert and all the way into the coast (h/t Business Insider).

Foreign investments have been hard to attract due to Saudi Arabia's human rights violations. U.S. intelligence has implicated Prince bin Salman in the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

The prince and Saudi authorities deny the charge.

However, high oil prices due to the Russia-Ukraine war have provided Saudi Arabia with the necessary funding, per the Daily Mail.

The project has an ambitious completion date by 2030, but engineers say it could take 50 years to construct as there are blueprints for an underground high-speed train that can travel from end to end in twenty minutes, the Daily Mail continued.

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Community members will have access to a marina, a sports stadium that is 1,000 feet above sea level, and a vertical farming subscription service for three meals a day.

Bin Salman believes that this can help reduce Saudi Arabia's reliance on oil for its economy, and draw in more tourism, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Not only will they have necessities, but they will also have artificial rain, a fake moon, robotic maids, and holographic teachers, as mentioned by Business Insider.

Criticisms: Saudi Arabia has abandoned plans to build a mile-high skyscraper before, as stated by the Daily Mail. Also, environmental planners have noted that due to the size of the building, migratory bird and animal patterns could be at risk as well as controlling the flow of the groundwater.