Artificial cities - from futuristic urban dreams to ghost towns

Future Tense

• Episode: Artificial cities - from futuristic urban dreams to ghost towns
• Website: Future Tense
• Feed URL: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/feed/2883726/podcast.xml
• Duration: 00:29:17
• Published: 2020-07-05 02:30

When it’s completed the futuristic city of Neom will sit in the Saudi Arabian desert, a US$500 billion dollar metropolis, thirty times larger than New York. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman believes the project will transform his kingdom into the innovation centre of the world, but critics say it risks further widening inequality and dividing the country in two. Also, what’s to become of China’s “ghost cities”? Built for future expansion, they now haunt the urban landscape.