Qualla: Neom https://qualla.com/neom en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:07 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/c/p/neom-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Neom https://qualla.com/neom Neom: Introduction https://qualla.com/neom/ Photo credit Original: Costa.x Derivative: باسم, CC BY-SA 4.0. The renderings looked like science fiction: two mirrored walls a hundred stories tall, running in a perfectly straight line across the desert for a hundred and ten miles, a city of nine million with no cars and no streets. Saudi Arabia called it The Line, the centerpiece of a megaproject named Neom on the empty coast where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aqaba. It was meant to be the boldest urban experiment ever attempted. By 2026, after a written-down fortune and years of delays, the reality on the ground was 2.4 kilometers of foundations, mostly bare sand, and a story far more complicated, and far more human, than any animation had promised.

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Image: Original: Costa.x Derivative: باسم | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/c/p/neom-wp/sucp-neom-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Neom: A City the Size of a Country https://qualla.com/neom/ Photo credit Le Henry français, CC BY-SA 4.0. Neom is vast even on paper: a planned zone of 26,500 square kilometers, larger than many nations, launched in 2017 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the showpiece of Saudi Vision 2030, the kingdom's plan to wean its economy off oil. The ambitions were staggering. A floating ...

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Image: Le Henry français | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/c/p/neom-wp/sucp-neom-a-city-the-size-of-a-country.mp3 0:06 2 full Neom: The People Who Were Already There https://qualla.com/neom/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. The coast Neom claimed was not empty. For centuries it had been home to the Howeitat, a Bedouin tribe whose villages, herds, and ancestral ground lay squarely in the project's path. Around twenty thousand people were slated for forced relocation, and villages were razed. The trib...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/c/p/neom-wp/sucp-neom-the-people-who-were-already-there.mp3 0:06 3 full Neom: The Cost of the Dream https://qualla.com/neom/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. Al-Huwaiti's death was not the end of the matter. In October 2022, a Saudi court sentenced three members of the Howeitat tribe to death for resisting displacement, among them Shadli al-Huwaiti, Abdul Rahim's brother. United Nations experts publicly raised the alarm over the execu...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/c/p/neom-wp/sucp-neom-the-cost-of-the-dream.mp3 0:06 4 full Neom: Mirage on the Gulf https://qualla.com/neom/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. What stands at Neom today is a study in the distance between vision and ground truth. The Line, once a hundred and ten miles, was quietly trimmed toward a couple of kilometers, its projected population cut from millions to fewer than three hundred thousand. In September 2025, the...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/u/c/p/neom-wp/sucp-neom-mirage-on-the-gulf.mp3 0:06 5 full