Sharjah's two-kilometre oasis offers a quieter, more deliverable alternative to The Line

Saudi Arabia’s grand vision of The Line—a 170‑kilometre, 500‑metre‑high “ribbon city” slicing through the desert—has become a cautionary tale about scale and cost. As NEOM’s flagship scheme wrestles with rising bills, leadership churn and a retreat from ambitious promises, a much smaller, greener alternative has surfaced in the Gulf: Khalid Bin Sultan City, a walkable two‑kilometre “oasis” planned for Sharjah and pitched as a practical model of climate‑smart urbanism.

According to reporting on NEOM, The Line has been hit by mounting financial pressure that has forced Saudi planners to prioritise components tied to near‑term milestones—most notably a short stretch set aside for a stadium for the 2034 World Cup—while other elements have been pared back. Industry sources told Reuters that cost estimates have ballooned, schedules have slipped and construction has slowed, prompting a rethink of what can realistically be delivered in the near term. In that context, proposals like Khalid Bin Sultan City appear as smaller, lower‑risk experiments in the same forward‑looking planning ethos, but with a clearer eye on deliverability.

BEEAH, the Sharjah‑based semi‑state holding company backing the scheme, rolled out the masterplan as its first major real‑estate venture. The group says the project will include roughly 1,500 freehold homes—a mix of apartments, townhouses and villas—organised into seven neighbourhoods centered around public plazas designed to be within a five‑minute walk of residents’ doors. A two‑kilometre shaded linear oasis forms the city’s spine, with tree‑lined boulevards, sheltered walkways and a central blend of business, cultural and leisure uses intended to let people live, work and socialise without long commutes.

Zaha Hadid Architects, which produced the masterplan, frames the design as a response to Sharjah’s desert climate and topography. The studio emphasizes passive cooling strategies, shaded public spaces and a human‑centred layout inspired by the fluid forms of the dunes. ArchDaily and the firm’s project pages describe a matrix of compact neighbourhoods, a focus on walkability and “net‑zero‑ready” infrastructure as core tenets of the proposal.

BEEAH’s announcements foreground technology and sustainability: renewable energy systems, water‑recycling infrastructure, AI‑driven services and digital identities are presented as essential components of a climate‑smart urban model. The group’s promotional materials also show autonomous minibuses and flying taxis as intra‑city transport options, and highlight planned connections by two major highways to Sharjah Airport and nearby Dubai. In its press release, BEEAH lays out the ambition but—crucially—offers no firm start date for construction and no cost breakdown, leaving the timetable and funding model opaque.

That gap matters. One reason The Line has stirred controversy is the gap between grand ambition and financial realism; industry reporting suggests NEOM’s backers have had to temper the original timetable and reallocate resources. Khalid Bin Sultan City’s modest scale and its explicit integration with an existing emirate infrastructure network make it inherently less risky, but without clear financing and implementation dates it remains a plan rather than a built city.

There are other real‑world considerations that complicate Gulf‑era visions of transformative infrastructure. Recent coverage of cross‑Red Sea schemes tied to NEOM notes advancing plans for a so‑called “Moses Bridge,” a roughly 32‑kilometre link between Saudi Arabia and Egypt estimated at around US$4 billion in some reports. Proponents argue the corridor would improve access to NEOM and stimulate trade and tourism, but commentators and environmental assessments have flagged geopolitical sensitivities and ecosystem impacts in the Strait of Tiran. Construction industry reporting suggests the proposal still faces major stages of approval and environmental scrutiny before it could move forward.

For Sharjah’s initiative, those larger geopolitics are peripheral but instructive. Khalid Bin Sultan City is pitched not as a headline‑grabbing megaproject but as a demonstration that sustainable, technology‑enabled urban extensions can be delivered at human scale. The involvement of a locally rooted waste‑management and sustainability group such as BEEAH, together with a globally recognised architectural practice, strengthens the project’s credibility on paper. Yet the absence of publicly disclosed budgets, a construction schedule or procurement details leaves open questions about who will back the city, how phasing will unfold and when residents might actually occupy the first homes.

Urbanists and regional planners will watch whether Khalid Bin Sultan City becomes a test case for a different model of Gulf urbanism—one that prioritises incremental, climate‑aware growth over headline‑grabbing scale. Proponents say the design’s emphasis on shaded public space, passive cooling and integrated renewables makes good sense given the realities of desert living. Skeptics will point out that many of the more optimistic elements—flying taxis, AI‑enabled services—often appear in promotional material long before they are proven at scale, and delivery depends on steady financing and credible governance.

Ultimately, the contrast between The Line and Khalid Bin Sultan City captures a broader shift in the region’s development dialogue. Where megaprojects used to be pitched on transformative ambition, there’s growing attention to feasibility, staged delivery and environmental constraints. Whether Sharjah’s oasis city will move from renderings to reality remains to be seen; for now, it offers a quieter, potentially more deliverable counterpoint to the sweeping visions that have come to define the Gulf’s urban ambitions.

Source: Noah Wire Services