End of the Line? Saudi Arabia ‘forced to scale back’ plans for desert megacity

Crown prince’s pet project was sold as a 105-mile-long city of the future, but finances may have led to a rethink

It was billed as a glass-walled city of the future, an ambitious centrepiece of the economic plan backed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to transition Saudi Arabia away from oil dependency.

Now, however, plans for the mirror-clad desert metropolis called the Line have been scaled down and the project, which was envisaged to stretch 105 miles (170km) is now expected to reach just a mile and a half by 2030.