What Does Neom’s Downsize Means for Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030?

The scaling back of the megacity project is attributed to budget constraints, with the Public Investment Fund's cash reserves dropping to $15bn in September 2023.Saudi Arabia has scaled back some of its ambitions for its desert megacity Neom, according to a report by Bloomberg. The $1.5 trillion megacity project, which organizers claim will be 33 times the size of New York City, is due to include a 170km straight-line city. When launching The Line in 2021, the Saudi government had announced that 1.5 million people would be living in the city by…