The Line – The Saudi-Arabian Linear City Concept as the Prototype of Future Cities

The launch announcement of the construction of a new, futuristic, emission-free city in Saudi Arabia in the form of a 170-kilometer line – The Line – by Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Chairman of the Neom Company Board of Directors, aroused a discussion about ideal cities, the geometry of a linear city and its legitimacy. It provoked questions whether a city built in such a way could provide an appropriate answer to contemporary and future urban problems, as its authors and promoters expected. On this occasion, it is impossible not to refer to the urban history to look at similar ideas of linear cities and the attempts to implement them for over 150 years. Although it has not been possible to fully realize the linear city in accordance with the initial assumptions of the concept so far, today it may turn out that the utopia will become a reality. There are quite significant reasons for this. The aim of the article is to familiarize the reader with the contemporary interpretation of the idea of a linear city, which may become a compositional prototype for the urban planning of sustainable cities in the future.