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Frame from Neom - The Line - The Rise and Fall of Saudi Arabia's Linear City. Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Neom - The Line - The Rise and Fall of Saudi Arabia's Linear City.

4 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this commentary4 months2024–2025 score 4.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended as the entertaining, skeptical overview of Neom whenever its progress comes up.

Patrick Boyle's deadpan account of Saudi Arabia's Neom and The Line megaproject, a planned 170 km linear city that has been scaled back to a fraction of its size. He covers the feasibility problems and the financing.

“is rather epic if you haven't seen it.” (HN, 2025)

1 strong recommendations · 3 recommendations · 3 citations · Commentary · news from the time

7 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@tim333 Oct 2024 Recommends
on HN thread Saudi Arabian Neom project 'uses one fifth of world's steel'
I think not. They probably mean the planned project would use one fifth of the world's steel but it is currently just a hole in the ground and the project is kind of ridiculous and won't get built as planned - even the Saudis don't have enough money. Patrick Boyle had an entertaining youtube on it [this video]
Entertaining overview of the ridiculous Neom project
@tim333 Nov 2025 Recommends
on HN thread The AI bubble is bigger than you think
It's been rather extraordinary. The Patrick Boyle vid on Neom done about a year ago was entertaining ( [this video] ). As might be expected that's all ground to a halt now.
Entertaining look at Neom before it stalled

Citations, criticism and jokes

@seanhunter Dec 2024 Cites it
on HN thread Yotta Bank and the Problem with Fintech (Patrick Boyle) [video]
Read more
Patrick Boyle has a running joke about how his goal is for his channel to be the number one channel on you tube covering rap and related topics but he sometimes gets distracted by other things. I think it started because of him making fun of people like influencers and their attempts to do things like rap, and rappers who shill crypto schemes. He basically covers what you might call popular finance topics but with an extremely dry sense of humour. You might say he’s a bit like a youtube version of Matt Levine but his jokes are perhaps more deadpan. To get a general idea of his usual schtick a good example is his coverage of neom the line [this video]
Example of Boyle's dry, deadpan style
@freefaler Dec 2024 Cites it
on HN thread Yotta Bank and the Problem with Fintech (Patrick Boyle) [video]
Yeah, as mentioned by him here: [this video] "...I don't usually cover topics like that on this channel. As regular viewers know, my videos are mostly about rap and rapping, with my goal being to become the number one crypto-nerd gangster rap channel on YouTube. However, sometimes I do get distracted by other topics. Anyhow, Bloomberg reported this week that Saudi Arabia is scaling back its medium-term ambitions."
Boyle's video noting Saudi Arabia scaling back ambitions
@smcin Jun 2025 Cites it
on HN thread Everything you need to know about Egypt's new capital city
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Doesn't count. Egypt's New Administrative Capital is located only 45km east of Cairo. Whereas previous epic fails on relocating capitals (/planned cities): - Nigeria's Abuja (1991) [0] is 330 mi/530 km northeast of Lagos, 1h20 by plane or 12hr by car. Fairly successful relocation. - Myanmar's Naypyidaw (2008) is 320 km/200 mi north of Yangon [1] Claimed 2025 population 930K, actual 780-900K. - Indonesia's Nusantara ("will be fully finished in five phases by 2045, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Indonesia") is on Borneo, 870 mi/11400 km and one island northeast of Jakarta [2] - also Saudi Arabia previously had King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC, planned since 2005), not a capital replacement: a planned city, intended as a logistics and manufacturing hub. Planned population: 2 million; actual 2002 population: only 7,000. [3] KAEC is referenced in the epic totally-not-sarcastic video Patrick Boyle on "Neom - The Line - The Rise and Fall of Saudi Arabia's Linear City" [4]. [0]: [link] [1]: [link] [2]: [link] [3]: [link] [4]: [this video]
Mentions King Abdullah Economic City as failed planned city

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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