This blog is about living car-free, which means that you would think I would get quite excited about any plans for a ‘car-free carbon-free city’. There are plans for such a city called ‘Neom’ in Saudi Arabia.

Neom which is billed as ‘a futuristic eco-city’ is suggested to be built in the desert in Saudi Arabia in a straight-line over 100 miles long. To say the oil dependent country is being ambitious in its plans for Neom would likely be an under-statement!

In this post I have no intentions of getting into the (human rights) controversies surrounding Saudi Arabia in general and this project in particular, as well as the potential environmental sustainability of building in a desert! I want to consider these city plans as a potentially interesting thought experiment in supporting car-free living.

From what I understand the straight-line city’s car-free-ness is based on being 200 metres wide and having a high-speed railway line running the length of the 100 miles. Hence you can get everywhere by just jumping on the train which is always in easy reach.

I suppose my main reflection is that I am wondering about the potential walking, cycling and wheeling arrangements in the planned city. Okay I realise in this case it is in the middle of a desert so the climate is probably against you (!), but aside from that would life feel a bit metronomic and somewhat restrictive travelling up and down a straight line? Or, would it make getting around feel ultra efficient and easy?

We will have to wait to see what happens with Neom. In many ways it sounds fascinating, if you focus on the design ambition over the ugly realities of the clearing and construction process, but does it sound enticing to live along a car-free line? I thought that I was going to feel really excited about the prospect of life in a imagined car-free city, but then life-on-the-line does not feel so car-free-ing. I wonder if you’ll even be allowed to take your bike on the train?