A Tale of Two National Visions:

Re-Imagining Saudi Arabia Through KAEC and NEOM

By

Klara Gilbert

A Thesis Submitted to McGill University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Joint Honours B.A. in Geography and History

Department of Geography
McGill University
Montreal, QC, Canada
April 2023

© Klara Gilbert 2023

 Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my supervisor, Dr. Sarah Moser, for her incomparable mentorship throughout
this research. Her faith in me, incredible availability, and enthusiasm for my research were
tremendous sources of encouragement and motivation throughout this process. I also want to
extend my thanks to Dr. Anna Kramer for agreeing to be my reader and to my honours
supervisors, Dr. Benjamin Forest and Dr. Sarah Turner, for their guidance and support
throughout this fulfilling program. It has been a joy to have such passionate supervisors
interested in this research and committed to seeing it reach its full potential.
Many thanks are also due to my professors, advisors, and peers in McGill's Geography
and History Departments. It has been a great pleasure to explore space and time with such a
diverse and intelligent group of individuals over the last four years. I will treasure my time spent
in the classroom (and online) learning from you all.
Last, thank you to my family and friends. To my mom, dad, sister, brother, and Abba, for
your endless support. To the McGill, Vancouver, and Hornby crews for your love, friendship,
and hilarious antics. This project would not have been possible without any of you.

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 Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... ii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ v
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. v
Abstract......................................................................................................................................... vi

Chapter 1. Introduction................................................................................................................ 1
1.1. Setting the scene: Building a kingdom of new cities for national development ...................... 1
1.2. Research aim, questions, and significance ............................................................................... 4
1.3. Thesis structure ........................................................................................................................ 5

Chapter 2. Literature Review ...................................................................................................... 6

2.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 6
2.2. Contemporary new city building ............................................................................................. 6
2.3. Globally circulating urban imaginaries for national development .......................................... 8
2.4. Authoritarian spatialities ........................................................................................................ 10
2.5. Chapter conclusions ............................................................................................................... 12

Chapter 3. Methodology ............................................................................................................. 13

3.1. Introduction: The principal methods for examining Saudi new city trends........................... 13
3.2. Historical analysis .................................................................................................................. 14
3.3. Discourse analysis .................................................................................................................. 15
3.4. Content analysis ..................................................................................................................... 15
3.5. Visual supports....................................................................................................................... 15
3.6. Chapter conclusions, limitations of the study, and positionality ........................................... 16

Chapter 4. Historical Context .................................................................................................... 18

4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 18
4.2. The house of Saud: Creating and preserving an empire ........................................................ 19
4.3. From Ibn Saud to Fahd: Continuity through ambiguity......................................................... 20
4.4. Abdullah’s reform agenda...................................................................................................... 23
4.5. King Salman and his son: Modernizing authoritarianism...................................................... 23
4.6. Chapter conclusions: Keeping the house in power ................................................................ 24

Chapter 5. KAEC and NEOM: Competing Visions of Saudi Futures ................................... 25

5.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 25
5.2. The vision for KAEC ............................................................................................................. 26
5.3. The vision for NEOM ............................................................................................................ 29
5.4. Changing geopolitical realities: Analyzing KAEC and NEOM ............................................ 33
5.4.1 City-centric similarities .............................................................................................. 33
5.4.2 NEOM’s traits: Correcting KAEC’s mistakes ............................................................ 34
5.4.3 Cutting through bureaucracy ..................................................................................... 35
5.4.4 Money no object ......................................................................................................... 36
5.4.5 Possible challenges moving forward .......................................................................... 36

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5.5. Chapter conclusions: City rivalries and remaining competitive ............................................ 37

Chapter 6. Cities to Save a Kingdom: Re-Branding Saudi Arabia ........................................ 38

6.1. Urban networking for soft power ........................................................................................... 38
6.2. Urban development as a distraction ....................................................................................... 39
6.3. New city building towards a secular future ........................................................................... 41
6.4. Chapter conclusions: New cities for a new national identity ................................................. 43

Chapter 7. Discussion and Conclusion ...................................................................................... 44

7.1. Chapter summaries................................................................................................................. 44
7.2. Contributions and significance of findings ............................................................................ 45
7.3. Directions for future research ................................................................................................ 46

References .................................................................................................................................... 47

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 List of Figures

Figure 1.1. The geographic location of KAEC and NEOM ........................................................... 4

Figure 3.1. Red Sea coastal development projects. ...................................................................... 14
Figure 4.1. Saudi royal family tree demonstrates a complicated line of succession with many
princely claimants. ........................................................................................................................ 19
Figure 5.1. KAEC's revised masterplan. ....................................................................................... 27
Figure 5.2. Undeveloped residential areas of KAEC. ................................................................... 28
Figure 5.3. KAEC's initial renderings (left) and current appearance (right). ............................... 28
Figure 5.4. NEOM's Masterplan: 1. Oxagon 2. Trojena 3. The Line 4. Sindalah. ....................... 31
Figure 5.5. A satellite image shows parts of NEOM that have been built. ................................... 32
Figure 6.1. Generic ‘western’ architectural design in KAEC. ...................................................... 42

List of Tables

Table 5.1. Main characteristics of KAEC and NEOM ................................................................. 25

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 Abstract

Over the past 20 years, the proliferation of new city projects in the Persian Gulf has
demonstrated how urban and economic development narratives are being used to strengthen top-
down government structures in rentier states. In Saudi Arabia, two new cities have emerged
explicitly in response to economic and political concerns over diminishing oil reserves: King
Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) and NEOM. Despite receiving significant media attention, no
scholarship compares these two projects. In this research, I explore the rationales, imaginaries,
and politics that underpin KAEC and NEOM and how they are manifested in their designs. In
doing so, this thesis highlights how the projects are city-centric expressions of Saudi Arabia’s
path to a post-oil future by two distinct Saudi regimes. While they vary significantly in terms of
funding, governance, and overall scale, they serve the same purpose: to use urban imaginaries to
express the promise and legitimacy of the Al-Saud regime as it transitions the kingdom's
economy away from oil.

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Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1. Setting the scene: Building a kingdom of new cities for national development
On October 24, 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (commonly referred to as
MBS) announced his plans for a special economic zone (SEZ) in northwestern Saudi Arabia: the
ambitious master planned region of NEOM (“Saudis set $500 billion plan to develop zone linked
with Jordan and Egypt”, 2017). Promotional materials about the city show a ‘world class’ hub
powered by clean energy with a floating industrial complex, tourist resorts, and a linear city
where women are free to jog in crop tops, AI and robots anticipate residents' needs, and an
artificial moon lights up the night sky (McGinley, 2019; NEOM Website). Advocates of the new
urban project predict that it will change the course of the kingdom’s history and function as a
“display [of] Saudi Arabia’s dedication to becoming [a] more contemporary, inclusive, and
progressive” nation (SNC Lavalin, n.d.: Online).
Building this new city is not an isolated project for Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite, but one in
a long line of urban projects attempted since the Kingdom’s founding in 1932. Following World
War II (WWII), King Ibn Saud developed Riyadh’s infrastructure and encouraged urbanization
as a way to stabilize his regime in a region whose political structure had previously been based
on nomadism and shifting allegiances (Al-Ankary & El Bushra, 1989). Within just a few
decades, his goal was realized: by 1985, 75 percent of the population lived in cities, reflecting
the kingdom’s rapid rate of urbanization from just 10 percent in 1950 (Al-Ankary & El-Bushra,
1989). The urbanization process was buoyed by the discovery of oil and Aramco’s subsequent
erection of company towns, transportation routes, and industrial infrastructure (Hertog, 2010).
This infrastructural base facilitated Saudi Arabian development, laying the foundations for the
kingdom to function as a modern state with a developmental philosophy that required a national
planning framework.
Since the kingdom’s initial period of urbanization in the decades following WWII, city-
building has been revived by the ruling elite during troublesome historical episodes as a strategy
to solidify the regime's survival. When King Khalid came to power in 1975 amidst a period of
Islamic revivalism in the Arab world, the cities of Jubail and Yanbu were officially recognized in
the kingdom’s Second Five-Year National Development Plan as sites for new industrial cities to
be developed (Pampanini, 1997). These cities were part of the kingdom’s strategy to create

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modern ‘free trade zones’ that incentivized foreign direct investment and midstream industrial
activities. Jubail and Yanbu were successful by all measures, as nonpetroleum industries like
steel, cement, and agriculture reduced the kingdom’s dependence on imports (Pampanini, 1997).
In the 21st century, uncertainties regarding the kingdom’s oil dependence have led to
heightened anxieties about the survival of the Saudi state. Saudi kings have faced a series of
challenges concerning royal succession, falling oil prices, the Arab uprisings since 2011, and
regional rivalries with Iran and other Gulf neighbours (Al-Rasheed, 2018: 1). The intersection of
these circumstances has prompted the government to reconsider its redistributive economy that
has shared oil profits among the population since the era of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and
60s (Hertog, 2018). Although rent distribution has helped to maintain the regime's stability over
half a century by creating networks of patronage and clientelism that effectively depoliticize
citizens, the recent period of austerity and dissent has shown that this is no longer a sustainable
model to avoid political upheaval in an increasingly globalized world (DeVriese, 2013; Hertog,
2018). Recognizing that the kingdom cannot live off oil wealth forever, the ruling elite has
pursued a development programme to overhaul the oil-exporting economy and encourage
financial diversification (Al-Rasheed, 2010).
The first attempt to engage in city building as a strategy to expand the kingdom’s
economy beyond crude oil export occurred in 2005 when former King Abdullah (reigned 2005-
2015) announced his plans for King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC). As an ambitious master-
planned city for two million built entirely from scratch, KAEC marks a significant new phase in
the kingdom’s national development agenda. Although the domain has engaged in city-building
before, efforts like Jubail and Yanbu were conducted in areas with existing population centers
and remained heavily petrochemical-oriented. KAEC, however, is representative of the broader
global trends of corporate-driven new cities, like Dubai, that were created to “leapfrog” resource-
based nations into knowledge economies (Hobday, 1995, as cited by Ewers & Malecki, 2010:
495) and develop a number of highly profitable sectors like finance and tourism. Indeed, its
stated purpose is to develop the kingdom’s industrial, research, education, and tourism industries
in an explicit attempt to transition the nation to a post-oil future (KAEC Website).
As two cities that have recently been conceptualized in response to concerns of
diminishing oil reserves and political unrest, KAEC and NEOM deserve scholarly attention. The
neoliberal knowledge networks that appeal to the kingdom’s royal elite differentiate the cities

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from previous urban projects. These ‘new cities’ are promoted as a panacea for contemporary
social and economic concerns like climate change, ‘Dutch’ disease, urban congestion, and
unemployment (Moser, 2020). As state-led initiatives to construct a knowledge-based economy,
the urban visions they promote promise a more progressive and secular Saudi society. However,
the top-down spatial policies they embody also allow for decision-making to become
increasingly concentrated in the hands of powerful individuals. With this in mind, it is vital to
consider how urban visions may be a new way for the House of Saud to bolster its political
legitimacy by consolidating power and strengthening its authoritarian grip on Saudi society.
Further investigation of current development initiatives is required to understand what actions
the monarchy takes to fashion a Saudi identity that will either keep the House robust or weaken
its role.
This study compares KAEC, announced in 2005, and NEOM, announced in 2017, to
evaluate how national diversification ambitions have evolved in the 2000s and how this
manifests in new city schemes. Using literal and visual content analysis, I seek to understand
how these two private cities in Saudi Arabia are imagined and deliberate on the implications that
these projects of “national revisionism and reordering” may have on the kingdom’s sovereign
landscape (Bsheer, 2020: 26).

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 Figure 1.1. The geographic location of KAEC and NEOM

1.2. Research aim, questions, and significance

This research project investigates how top-down development imaginaries in Saudi Arabia’s new
cities, KAEC and NEOM, are employed as national development strategies to maneuver Saudi
Arabia to a post-oil future. Three questions stem from this objective that will be used to help
guide my literature review, conceptual framework, and methodology. First, what are the main
rationales for new city-building in Saudi Arabia? Secondly, how do national development
strategies inform urban imaginaries? Third, how are Saudi Arabian politics manifested in new
city projects?
The complex political circumstances underpinning corporate-driven cities in Saudi
Arabia remain largely unexplored. This research intends to help fill this gap by exploring how
urban policies are essential to Saudi Arabia’s diversification strategy. In the kingdom’s

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authoritarian context, the city-centric narratives that accompany such policies effectively
legitimize and strengthen top-down government structures.

1.3. Thesis structure

This introductory chapter has set the thesis in a broader context of Saudi Arabian history and
urban studies, discussed the rationale and contributions of the research, and outlined my research
objective and key questions. Chapter Two, Literature Review, provides a critical review of the
several strands of literature which I engage with and contribute to in this thesis, organized into
three sections: contemporary new city building, globally circulating urban imaginaries for
national development, authoritarian spatialities. Chapter Three lays out the methodology that has
guided this research: historical, discourse, and content analysis. I also discuss the limitations of
this study through a reflection on my positionality and the scope of this research. Chapter Four
examines how the Saudi elite established and re-constructed Saudi identity to quell political
unrest and maintain power since 1932. By providing helpful background on the Saudi political
apparatus, this chapter simultaneously highlights continuities in Saudi nation-building strategies
while pointing to significant policy ruptures in recent decades. Chapter Five, Comparison of
KAEC and NEOM, demonstrates how this concept manifests in the urban sphere. I argue that
KAEC and NEOM are city-centric expressions of Saudi Arabia’s path to a post-oil future by two
Saudi regimes whose approaches to achieving this goal are largely disparate. Chapter 6, Cities to
Save a Kingdom: Re-Branding Saudi Arabia, highlights how the urban imaginaries for each
project create a new narrative of Saudi Arabia that favours the monarchy. This thesis concludes
with Chapter Seven, Discussion and Conclusion, in which I summarize how each chapter
addresses the research questions, review the key findings of the thesis and its contributions to
existing literature, and provide several directions for future research.

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Chapter 2. Literature Review
2.1. Introduction
The conceptual framework I outline in this section contextualizes my research objectives, topics,
and questions within critical urban studies scholarship, which I aim to contribute to in this thesis.
By critically reviewing these bodies of literature, I provide relevant background on the
theoretical and empirical concepts I will explore in my thesis and a justification for my
contributions to the scholarship. My research aims to critically investigate Saudi Arabia’s new
city-building projects in KAEC and NEOM as top-down national development strategies. I have
compiled the literature that informs this thesis into three categories: 1) Contemporary new city
building, 2) Globally circulating urban imaginaries for national development, and 3)
Authoritarian spatialities. These categories allow me to understand the attraction towards global
new city models and how they are often appropriated in authoritarian political contexts to impact
decision-making for the built environment.

2.2. Contemporary new city building

More than 150 master-planned cities have been developed from the ground up in the past two
decades (Moser & Côté‐Roy, 2021). This project surge has occurred primarily in the Global
South, where new cities are often viewed opportunistically. In my review of this literature
section, I aim to explore the phenomenon of contemporary new city-building.
The tradition of developing cities from scratch is hardly new, but recent iterations in the
twenty-first century represent a departure from master-planned projects of the past. Markedly,
the corporate interests in 21st-century new cities differentiate them from the WWII
reconstruction era new towns and post-colonial utopian cities (Moser, 2015; Vale, 2008). In the
United Kingdom, France, and many other countries, new towns were “wedded to welfare state
ideals” as they sought to confront urban ills and resolve the housing shortages that resulted from
the post-war population increase (Freestone, 2021: 19). Similarly infused with socialist ideas,
newly independent nations managed urban migration by constructing city complexes anew to
promote national identity and bolster anti-colonial sentiments (Vale, 2008). Cities such as
Chandigarh (India) and Brasilia (Brazil) were state-led nation-building efforts that employed top-
down modernist design principles to differentiate from the British colonial period (Hall, 2014).
By contrast, recent projects are far less centralized. New cities today demonstrate a

6
fragmentation of national interests as developments are informed by globalized networks of
entrepreneurialism, supported mainly through private sector engagement, and marketed towards
the world’s economic elite (Moser, 2015). Characterized by increasing privatization, recent new
city-building projects deviate from the reformist theoretical underpinnings of post-colonial new
cities.
The current appeals and functions of new cities in the Global South demonstrate the
rationales for new city creation promoted by political actors. Moser and Côté‐Roy situate the rise
in new city projects within broader trends in the world market: the financialization of real estate,
deregulation of global economies, growth of capital inflows, and the increasingly influential role
of technology companies in development are important occurrences that have made the
investment in new cities particularly attractive (2021: 2-3). In this context, urbanization has
come to be seen as a “business model” (Datta, 2015, as cited in Moser & Côté‐Roy, 2021: 5)
through which investors in new city developments can profit. Many new cities are designed to
project an elusive ‘international’ aesthetic that will appeal to wealthy foreign buyers (Moser &
Côté‐Roy, 2021). Also, they provide new opportunities to engage in urban governance for
increased efficiency. Recent research indicates that most new cities have a corporate
management structure in which a CEO oversees city affairs instead of an elected official (Moser,
2020). Indeed, economic rationales underpin realistically private developments at the city scale
(Fält, 2019). Political elites respond to these new cities as they represent another means to
elevate their status, diversify their economic portfolio, and engineer a prestigious social
landscape (Moser, 2020).
The proliferation of new city projects in the context of the Persian Gulf highlights how
urban development narratives are being used to strengthen top-down government structures. As
post-oil futures loom nearer, local ruling elites must be taken seriously as they strive to maintain
statehood and power. Hertog argues that cities provide a “soft power infrastructure” from which
Gulf nations can build cultural credibility (2019: 295). Indeed, the United Arab Emirates and
Qatar have been heavily engaged in constructing ‘instant cities’ to transform their urban
landscapes for global integration (Bagaeen, 2007). Place-branding initiatives have generated
symbolic images of Dubai and Doha as sites of progress and dynamism where amazing
structures are built for world-class talent (Bagaeen, 2007; Shoaib & Keivani, 2015). By
cultivating cosmopolitanism, these rentier states seek to distance themselves from their status as

7
hydrocarbon producers and move towards more international identities that will allow them to
continue exerting regional cultural and economic leadership (Hertog, 2019).
These ambitions are reflected in the Saudi Arabian context as well. KAEC has been the
subject of many place-branding initiatives to communicate the kingdom’s growth and
development to a global audience (Shoaib & Keivani, 2015). As Moser’s ethnographic fieldwork
at the KAEC Cityquest Forums demonstrates, the kingdom uses KAEC’s imagined spaces for
marketing itself as an expert in new city building, innovation, and policy through a “master class
in advanced urbanization” (2019: 223). In this way, Saudi Arabia’s experimentation in new city
building can be understood as a symptom of more significant trends in the Persian Gulf, but
further research has the potential to explain the unique processes of development in the
kingdom’s context.
Thus, the phenomenon of new city-building is evidence of an increasingly neoliberal
world where urban development is seen as an attractive investment opportunity rather than a
means for societal improvement. As urban geography scholarship explaining the global city-
building trend increases, this honours thesis aims to situate Saudi Arabia’s unique national
ambitions within the development currents of the Gulf region.

2.3. Globally circulating urban imaginaries for national development

City-centric visions of prosperity in the Global South are inspired mainly by the transnational
circulation of ideas (Moser, 2019). In this section, the concept of urban policy mobility will help
explain how neoliberal rhetoric about accelerated processes of innovation and entrepreneurialism
inspires urban imaginations across the globe. Exploring the rhetorical manifestations of these
fantastical urban ideas helps determine the underlying ambitions of new city-building.
First, it is important to differentiate between policy transfer and urban policy mobilities to
situate the concept within urban studies literature. McCann states that the term ‘policy transfer’
is often used in political science scholarship to describe how national policymakers “import
innovatory policy developed elsewhere in the belief that it will be similarly successful in a
different context” (Stone, 1999 as cited in McCann, 2011:110). However, McCann argues that
this perspective often ignores the socio-spatial and scalar elements involved in knowledge
transfers. He outlines a view of urban policy mobility that emphasizes how “socially produced
and circulated forms of knowledge” are developed across “various spatial scales, networks,

8
policy communities, and institutional contexts” to inform and produce urban ideas (McCann,
2011: 109). Indeed, a burgeoning body of scholarship investigating the mechanisms of how
urban policy is mobilized has demonstrated the active role that politicians (Phelps et al., 2014),
global consultancies (Prince, 2012; Rapoport & Hult, 2017), and private international
architecture and planning firms (Rapoport, 2015) play in circulating urban visions through
policies and services. Scholars have highlighted that these actors’ ideas are bolstered by
sophisticated websites, captivating urban models, and digital visualizations that convincingly
bring their policies to life (Watson, 2020). These seduction methods shape global policy
landscapes by creating urban development pathways informed by a narrow set of precedents and
procedures that are widely promoted and appropriated.
The persuasive narratives that global knowledge circulation promulgates inform urban
imaginations. McCann defines imaginaries as a socially produced “set of meanings, values, and
institutions held in common and constituting the worldview of a particular community or
society” (2011: 116). He argues that actors in the urban policy community employ tropes and
representational techniques to convince clients that urban policies created and implemented
elsewhere apply to their local circumstances (2011: 116). For example, urban policymakers boast
‘green’- or ‘eco’-developments (Moser & Avery, 2021), global- or world-city aesthetics (Ong,
2011), and high-tech ‘smart’ cities (Das, 2019) as all-purpose solutions to urban challenges
through elaborate city-branding techniques. These narratives present new cities as an opportunity
to sidestep the messy parameters typically involved in developing existing urban infrastructure
(Murray, 2015). In this way, new cities become ‘representational spaces’ with infinite
possibilities (Lefebvre, 1991 [1974], as cited in Lindner & Meissner, 2018: 5). The built
environment is configured as a primary modality through which national development strategies
and ambitions can be imagined and achieved.
Recent publications have identified economic development as one of the principal
ambitions underpinning many new city builds (Moser & Côté‐Roy, 2021). The instantaneous
development narratives that new city models promote are particularly attractive to pre-industrial
economies that seek to diversify by constructing knowledge-based sectors that are sustainable
and competitive (Childs & Hearn, 2017). Ewers and Malecki describe the goal of Gulf
economies to “catch up” to other nations who have already experienced a period of capitalist
industrialization as “leapfrogging” (Hobday, 1995 as cited by Ewers & Malecki, 2010: 495).

9
This ‘leapfrog’ phenomenon will allow Gulf states to invest their petro-dollars in bypassing the
industrial development model of transition and developing high-tech sectors distinguished with
research and development. The ‘Four Tigers’ inspired this model: East Asian electronic firms
that developed competitive export-oriented industrial economies through government subsidies
in the late twentieth century (Ewers & Malecki, 2010). But the economic circumstances of the
Gulf States are unique, and they face significant challenges in competitiveness, knowledge
accumulation, and labour (Ewers & Malecki, 2010). Whether these rentier states can transform
their sudden oil wealth into human capital remains to be seen.
In brief, literature on the highly-mobile circulation of urban imaginaries demonstrates
how global perspectives inform development visions and the strategies various nations pursue.
Additional research is required to distill how new city imaginations in Saudi Arabia differentiate
themselves from other global approaches and the degree to which they are successful at
‘leapfrogging’ the national economy.

2.4. Authoritarian spatialities

Economically motivated new city projects are frequently associated with planning in
authoritarian or non-democratic contexts. Scholarship discusses how new cities are state-led
endeavours that aim to express the nation’s “unity, promise, and modernity” by creating an urban
spectacle (Koch, 2018: 2) that projects a distinct brand. In reviewing this part of the literature, I
intend to understand the highly centralized political dynamics that underpin and exacerbate
authoritarian spatialities.
New cities play a central political and ideological role for states. The cultural politics of
these master-planned cities can be understood through Vale's (2008 [1992]) book Architecture,
Power, and National Identity, in which he examines the design of parliamentary complexes in
capital cities throughout the global North and South. In each case, he argues that architecture and
urban planning are used as political instruments to construct a national identity that bolsters the
state’s hegemony. More recent place-specific analyses explore how new cities strategically
project symbols of modernity, religion, and an ‘authentic’ cultural heritage – among other things
– to service nation-building agendas (Koch, 2014a, 2018; Moser, 2011; Vale, 2008). Urban
design serves as another sphere through which to strengthen state power and ideology.

10
 Moreover, new city-building projects are seen as a means for leadership to legitimize
their role. In her investigation of the sustainability narratives surrounding urban mega-projects in
Qatar, Koch (2014b) argues that these discourses have been used to ‘green-wash’ Qatar’s
environmentally damaging development scheme but, more importantly, to garner respect for the
monarchy and their domestic nation-building agenda. By treating sustainability as an ambiguous
strategic discourse, she suggests that researchers need to consider how the various rationales for
city-building projects “fit into the leadership’s legitimacy projects – in terms of efforts to secure
both domestic and foreign approval of the country’s non-democratic political configuration”
(Koch, 2014b: 1121).
Ideology and legitimacy projects can have concrete ramifications in the urban landscapes
where they are enacted. Koch (2018) explores how the mixed agendas of resource-rich non-
democratic states are often represented through extravagant urban projects in The Geopolitics of
Spectacle: Space, Synecdoche, and the New Capitals of Asia. She states that spectacular urban
developments are “lavish[ly] built landscapes […] that represent a stark contrast with their
surrounding context” and that they are developed to show the “government’s prosperity and
ostensible benevolence in a manner that contrasts significantly with other forms of state austerity
and violence found elsewhere” (Koch, 2018: 2). These urban imaginations are designed to stand
apart in a variety of ways: cities such as Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Dubai are all examples of
statist spectacles that are of a unique magnitude and perceived experience (Koch, 2018: 3).
Koch’s Spatializing Authoritarianism (2022) argues that authoritarianism has a spatiality
that is imagined and produced at various scales. Tracing case studies on cities overtime in the
Global South and North from Nazi Germany (Hagen in Koch, 2022) to Putin’s Russia
(Argenbright in Koch, 2022), she argues that authoritarianism is intimately linked to the built
environment and the national narratives it expresses. At the same time, Koch prompts
researchers to be more reflexive about their ideological orientations and recognize how
authoritarian practices can be present in various political circumstances, places, and spaces.
Authoritarian spatialities can be found worldwide in democratic and nondemocratic contexts. It
is incumbent on researchers to understand how global and domestic actors, institutions, and
instruments are mobilized to transform the built environment to serve the agendas of political
and economic elites.

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 Thus, authoritarian spatialities represent the “deeply political understanding of
geography” held by nondemocratic actors worldwide (Koch, 2018: 3). Although there is a well-
documented discussion of this phenomenon in the Gulf and globally, I seek to provide an in-
depth place-specific analysis of this issue in the Saudi Arabian context. A comparison of KAEC
and NEOM will explore how authoritarian spatialities can differ between non-democratic
leaders, highlighting how space is imagined and transformed by politics.

2.5. Chapter conclusions

Through a discussion of scholarship in urban studies and beyond, I have distilled the key
concepts and ideas that will support my analysis and interpretations. Moreover, I have
demonstrated the need to examine Saudi Arabia’s contributions to these trends. Although I have
divided the literature into different groups in this section, these ideas frequently converge and
overlap to form the conceptual framework for my research. From this foundation, I will build my
analysis and pursue my research objective of investigating Saudi Arabia’s new city-building
projects in KAEC and NEOM as national economic strategies imagined and enacted by two
different authoritarian regimes.

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Chapter 3. Methodology
3.1. Introduction: The principal methods for examining Saudi new city trends
My examination of the new city-building phenomenon in Saudi Arabia investigates the political
dialectics informing the city-building trend in the kingdom, the strategies used to construct these
projects, and the distinctness of two local, new city projects in Saudi Arabia through qualitative
analysis. The various actors, networks, and narratives marshalled to develop new cities embody
the discourse of city-building visions and their consequences. The objective of this project to
understand new city-building in Saudi Arabia in the context of its distinctive government
paradigm requires a methodological approach that simultaneously considers the local and global
political dimensions of the phenomenon in my analysis. As such, textual and visual content
analysis form the basis for understanding Saudi authoritarian urban projects and their globally
informed rationales.
The selection of new city projects to conduct a focused analysis was guided by my desire
to understand how Saudi leadership’s ambitions have shifted in the last decade. The two cities I
will analyze represent some of the more important city projects conceived by the Al-Saud family
(see Fig. 3.1.). Significantly, they differ in terms of their actors, stages of production, promotion
tactics, economies, social dynamics, and urban visions.
A global approach to new city studies combined with a localized investigation of Saudi
Arabia’s national city-building strategy will help explain the dynamics of authoritarian urbanism.
The two cities presented will be understood through urban policy mobility theory and evaluated
through historical contexts, as well as discourse and content analysis. These methodological
steps will be taken to achieve the results, but it is important to stress the challenges and
limitations of using such research techniques.

13
 Figure 3.1. Red Sea coastal development projects.
Source: KAEC Website.
3.2. Historical analysis
Understanding Saudi Arabia's political past is valuable to comprehend the recent push for new
cities in the kingdom. Chapter four cites histories written by Saudi and international scholars to
provide context for the ideologies underpinning Saudi politics and nationhood. It is important to
note that his section does not wish to give a ‘great man’ history of Saudi Arabia. Instead, it seeks
to explore the fundamental role of the House of Saud in the nation’s decision-making. Schrag
argues that “history is the study of people and the choices they made” (9, 2021). A historical
context chapter explores the culture of choice amongst Saudi leadership and provides a vital
foundation for examining the rationales behind contemporary new city-building initiatives.
Nevertheless, it is crucial to recognize the limitations of historiographical sources and how
they impact the construction of historical narratives. The weaknesses in Saudi Arabia’s historical
canon lie in the sources used in their analyses. Historical sources are flawed from the time they are

14
recorded, retained, and retrieved. Moreover, the historian’s craft is imperfect: included or excluded
information contributes to an interpretation of the past that is inevitably biased (Trouillot & Carby,
2015). Many angles for understanding Saudi Arabia will remain unexplored in my thesis because
I build upon these previously constructed narratives.

3.3. Discourse analysis

The other component of the methodology underpinning this research is a focused discourse
analysis of KAEC and NEOM’s promotional materials (websites, press releases, and brochures)
to measure how new city imaginaries are constructed. Following Foucault’s philosophical
principles, discourse can be understood as “a group of statements that appear to have a common
theme that provides them with a unified effect” (Waitt, 2016: 289). I mined the texts on each
project’s pages to organize and interpret the representations of how new city projects are
prescribed for various interests. Coding for these particular ‘buzzwords’ and situating them
within the themes of new city literature demonstrates Saudi approaches to new city-building and
how they have changed over time (Boyatzis, 1998). However, it is essential to realize that this
process is characterized by subjectivity as it is both “selective and prescriptive” (Waitt, 2016:
309). Websites are valuable “sites of discursive propagation” (Dixon & Jones III, 2004: 91) that
can only reveal some of the rationales and goals behind these projects

3.4. Content analysis

Juxtaposing the two website's images enhanced this comparison of initiatives. Images are an
instrumental technique for exploring entrepreneurial aspirations in the digital age because they
communicate aspects of the online source that cannot be revealed through language (Butler-
Kisber & Poldma, 2010). Examining place branding through images from each site will uncover
the internal actors' visions and motives (Wagner & Peters, 2009).

3.5. Visual supports

I constructed visual supports to illustrate my claims throughout this project. Chapter five features
a compilation of the two city’s masterplans, Google Earth representations, and other website
imagery to explore their tacit aims through content analysis. This section also includes a
summary table delineating both cities' factual similarities and differences for comprehensive

15
comparative analysis. Without a quantitative dataset, these maps, figures, and tables made
visualizing the information I was analyzing easier.

3.6. Chapter conclusions, limitations of the study, and positionality

When designing my research topic and questions, I focused on the crown jewel projects of two
different political regimes to determine how Saudi new-city-building has changed throughout the
21st century. While this endeavour required a great deal of data collection, it does not account for
every element of Saudi Arabia’s new city projects. This study is constrained by its online
disposition and limited access to materials. Due to time and money constraints, I could not
personally travel to Saudi Arabia to assess the new city-building projects. Nor could I interview
Saudi citizens to hear their thoughts and opinions on these developments, which would have
generated valuable qualitative data from the ‘bottom up’ (Davis, 1971). As I am not an Arabic
speaker, accessing online materials that may have yielded similar results as in-person fieldwork
was difficult. This lack of access to Saudi input has shaped the types of questions I have been
able to ask and the scope of what this study covers.
The authoritarian context in which KAEC and NEOM are located creates significant
methodological challenges. Both cities are top-down projects where the state is deeply engaged
with the private sector in the use of national resource revenue. This high-stakes and high-profile
environment surrounding non-democratic development creates a strong incentive for
stakeholders to control city narratives (Moser & Côté-Roy, 2022: 5). As such, it can be difficult
to gain access to reliable information on the projects. City project websites and social media
platforms constantly remove, add, and change content to attract investors and favourable media
attention. Without press freedom in Saudi Arabia, it is challenging to obtain on-the-ground,
consistent, and up-to-date information on whether this progress has been made or how new
initiatives vary from the initial master plan that was promised. The incomplete nature of these
sources requires a degree of ‘reading against the grain’ to uncover other forces driving the
creation of master-planned cities in Saudi Arabia (Bigelow, 2020).
Nevertheless, my access to this research is still undoubtedly advantaged by my
positionality (Moser & Côté-Roy, 2022: 8). As a Canadian student in a Canadian institution, I am
free to write critically about these new city projects and their top-down nature. This shapes how I
can conduct my research activities about Saudi Arabia, the questions I can ask, my access to

16
information, and the interpretation of my results as an undergraduate researcher and non-Saudi.
But it can also contribute to an unconscious inclination toward Eurocentric frameworks and
teleological narratives (Prakash, 1994). Therefore, reflexivity is an essential process in my
research as it allows me to reflect on these factors critically and recognize my positions and
assumptions (Valentine, 2002).

17
Chapter 4. Historical Context
4.1. Introduction
The Saud family has pursued a policy of flexible adaptation to maintain their kingdom’s
influence over the Arabian Peninsula. Since the kingdom’s unification in 1932, Saudi national
identity has shifted as the changes imposed by globalization have forced new development
strategies. This section focuses on Saudi Arabian history as told by the line of succession (see
Fig. 4.1.) to explore how the royal family has been instrumental in fostering a malleable national
character. First, I discuss the foundations of the House of Saud to provide background on Saudi
national identity and explore the legitimizing forces that led to the kingdom’s absolute power.
Second, I explore the disparate strategies that Ibn Saud’s sons pursued to amass loyalty,
emphasizing the dubious character that has helped the House maintain control. Third, I highlight
the changes brought by globalization and link them to Saudi Arabia’s current reform efforts.
Finally, I consider how the lack of a consistent national identity since 1932 has provided the
impetus for King Salman’s ruthless regime, where state centralization has intensified into MBS’
unique modern authoritarianism.
This narrative of Saudi Arabia outlines crucial junctures in the kingdom’s history in
which leaders of the Al-Saud regime have adapted to changing global circumstances and internal
instability to maintain power. It is essential to realize that it is by no means complete and lacks
certain descriptions of the region's social and cultural struggles. Therefore, the Al-Saud family’s
actions are a testament that the future of Saudi Arabia is never guaranteed, and its
historiographical representations are constantly in flux.

18
 Figure 4.1. Saudi royal family tree demonstrates a complicated line of succession with many princely claimants.
Source: Business Insider adapted from Reuters, Saudi Press Agency.

4.2. The house of Saud: Creating and preserving an empire

The House of Saud’s creation is intimately linked to the Wahhabi religious institution that helped
to support and legitimize the establishment of an absolute monarchy in the Arabian Peninsula.
Following the Golden Age of Islam and before the kingdom's unification, the social landscape of
the Peninsula was characterized by fragmented tribes and clans (Safran, 2018). But a pact
between Muhammed ibn Saud and the local religious leader, Muhammed Abn al Wahhab, in
1744 was the impetus for a dramatic change in the region (Al-Rasheed, 2010). Muhammed Abn
al Wahhab preached a puritanical interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism that is considered
ultra-conservative in its contemporary iterations (Delong-Bas, 2004). The alliance provided
Muhammed Ibn Saud with political significance. It bolstered the importance of jihad, an Islamic
concept of struggle that can be interpreted to favour waging war against non-Muslim faiths (Al-
Rasheed, 2010). In this way, Muhammed ibn Saud engaged in rising religiosity to form a solid

19
power base that would help impose Saudi political authority on conquered towns throughout the
Peninsula.
The legacy of this alliance lasted throughout the Ottoman rule of the 19th Century until a
descendant of the Al-Saud family – Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman al-Saud (also known as Ibn
Saud) – conquered Riyadh to re-establish the Saud royal family’s legitimacy. Ibn Saud
recognized the potential power the Wahhabi idea of the state could provide him. Wahhabi
doctrine stipulated that “power is legitimate however it may have been seized, and that
obedience to whoever wields this power is incumbent upon all his subjects” (al-Azmeh 1993:
107 - quoted in Al-Rasheed, 2010). As such, two important actors, the religious specialists
known as mutawwa’a and the Wahhabi militia called Ikhwan, were instrumental in creating the
kingdom in 1932 (Al-Rasheed, 2010). The mutawwa’a engaged in state formation by enforcing a
ritualistic Islam that forced acceptance of Ibn Saud’s political authority. Meanwhile, the Ikhwan
conquered various regions in the Peninsula to help Ibn Saud expand Saudi influence (Al-
Rasheed, 2010). These two forces supported Ibn Saud if he complied with and enforced the
intensified version of Islamic religious law they promoted. Religion provided a powerful impetus
for state-building initiatives that the Saud family used to consolidate their power in the emerging
state.
Measures undertaken to create and consolidate the Saudi empire were followed by
important actions to preserve the empire. Ibn Saud pursued two main processes to consolidate his
royal lineage and guarantee the survival of the dynasty: marginalizing claims to the throne from
within the Al Saud family and creating an extensive line of descent (Al-Rasheed, 2010: 69). Ibn
Saud contained the threat posed by members of his generation by placing them in governmental
positions and pacifying their complaints (Al-Rasheed, 2010). These efforts were bolstered by a
clever political strategy of polygamy that ensured extensive Saudi kingship. Ibn Saud succeeded:
he left forty-three sons and over fifty daughters whose alliances across the kingdom helped to
maintain the House of Saud’s autocratic rule until his death in 1953 (Vietor, 2007).

4.3. From Ibn Saud to Fahd: Continuity through ambiguity

Strategies to amass control and loyalty in Saudi Arabia shifted during Ibn Saud’s reign (1932-
1953) after oil was discovered in commercial quantities. Investment in oil extraction by US-
controlled companies allowed for the discovery of petroleum and the unprecedented windfall

20
gains from extraction that followed (Vietor, 2007). The nascent kingdom that had once relied on
agriculture and pilgrimage as its primary sources of revenue (El-Ghonemy, 1998) began to
receive revenues from oil of $212 million by 1952 (Safran 2018: 61). No sooner did this happen,
however, then did internal instability and the hostility of the Hashemite rulers of Iraq and
Transjordan resurge (Safran, 2018: 57). Concerned once again with the security of his creation,
Ibn Saud leveraged the newfound wealth and influence that oil had provided to guarantee the
future of his kingdom. The oil extraction money used to develop Riyadh’s infrastructure helped
to quell internal dissent and keep his realm together (Al-Rasheed, 2010). Moreover, Ibn Saud
negotiated a security alliance with the United States and neutralized the Hashemite threat in
regions of the Arab world (Safran, 2018). Ibn Saud enhanced his hold on the country by using
oil's economic and political benefits to silence opposition and guarantee the security of his state
in the Arab region.
Nevertheless, the future of the nascent Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not guaranteed as
divisions within the royal family itself threatened the monarchy’s rule. Internal political strife
erupted in the Saudi royal family as Ibn Saud's sons, Saud (reigned 1953-1964) and Faisal
(reigned 1964-1975), struggled to gain and maintain power after their father died in 1953.
Frequently, their contest with each other manifested in “rival policies and programs” that sought
to respond to the Hashemite and Nasserite revolutionary threats of the 1950s and 60s (Safran,
2011: 110). Antagonism between the two brothers highlighted the Saudi regime’s innate
vulnerability to the complications arising from the problem of succession. The brothers
responded to external tensions with muddled politics preoccupied with guaranteeing their place
as heads of the Saudi state.
The requirements of preserving the realm drove King Faisal to adopt policies that altered
the foundations of Saudi society. He confronted the threats of Arab nationalism that emphasized
secularist and socialist ideologies by developing a highly centralized plan for modernization
within an Islamic framework. In 1970, he launched the first five-year plan, an initiative to
develop the country’s material infrastructure and lay the foundations for expanded social services
(al-Rasheed, 2010: 117). At the same time, he made the senior ulema into state functionaries and
gave them more control over the country’s education system, formalizing the previously “loose
holy alliance” between the regime and its religious institutions (al-Rasheed, 2010: 119). The
ulema endorsed Faisal’s social and economic reforms in return for religious concessions, casting

21
authenticity on his political strategies to counter internal and external threats. Faisal responded to
radical and secular dissidence by introducing an economic development plan that was faithful
and authentic to Islam.
But King Khalid’s reign (1975-1982) demonstrated that discontinuity was the only
continuity in Saudi nationhood (Safran, 2011: 215). The dramatic rise of oil prices in the early
1970s allowed Saudi Arabia to enjoy unprecedented affluence that facilitated the internal
modernization already underway. As a part of its second development plan, it expanded and
created cities like Jubail and Yanbu by building connective infrastructure in power, roads,
airports, railroads, ports, and telecommunications. But the contradictions between the increasing
materialism of Saudi society and the Islamic rhetoric previously promoted by King Faisal led to
domestic tensions. These materialized in the Mecca Mosque siege (1979) and the Shi’a riots
(1979-1980), which demonstrated increasing domestic hostility to the House of Saud’s rule and
its alliances with the United States (al-Rasheed, 2010). Saudi society struggled to reconcile how
rapid economic modernization and royal politics were consistent with the religious doctrine that
had become more articulate in the country’s religious learning centres. Indeed, King Khalid’s
continuation of Faisal’s policies resulted in even more radical political upheaval that altered the
regime's strategic posture. The Islamic political rhetoric the regime had previously used to
undermine leftist and national political forces in the Arab world now threatened its survival.
A period of austerity and the Gulf War bolstered opposition to the government and
created a “crisis of legitimacy” for the Al Saud regime (al-Rasheed, 2010: 159). The US defeat
of Iraq, a neighbouring Arab state, gave credence to Islamist opponents who were enraged by
King Fahd’s “submission” to the West (Vietor, 2007: 155). More generally, critics questioned
the Saudi monarchy’s leadership capabilities when it could not confront Iraqi threats after
decades of overspending on state security and development (Al-Rasheed, 2010). King Fahd
responded by introducing reforms in 1992 that pacified and contained opposition voices. Most
importantly, he introduced a Basic Law, promised during Faysal’s struggle with Saud,
reaffirming monarchial rule and Islamic religious principles. But government reforms went hand
in hand with increasing state control through greater surveillance and violence against suspected
dissidents (Al-Rasheed, 2010).

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4.4. Abdullah’s reform agenda
At the turn of the 21st century, Crown Prince Abdullah (reigned 2005-2015) entered as the acting
King to an internal crisis resulting from decades of inconsistent policy. The economic wealth of
the first Saudi oil boom of the 1970s had dwindled throughout the 1980s and 90s due to several
five-year development plans that needed better management. Moreover, the global discourse
surrounding democratization and human rights in an increasingly globalized world created
unprecedented levels of activism in the country (Al-Rasheed, 2010). A fragmented state and
strained economy characterized Saudi Arabia and contributed to rising political opposition and
domestic terrorism.
King Abdullah countered dissent with various strategies. He followed the kingdom's
long-term strategic planning by introducing a seventh Five-Year Plan to restructure the
kingdom’s economy and make it more open to the global world without diluting the role of the
Al Saud (Vietor, 2007). An overhaul of the built environment was an important part of this plan.
Mega re-development in Mecca, Medina, and Riyadh, coupled with the creation of entirely new
cities from scratch like KAEC and Jizan, demonstrated how the Saudi regime sought to change
the country’s creed by reconfiguring its space (Bsheer, 2020). Spatial redevelopment and new
development created investment opportunities that strengthened the post-Gulf War economy
while simultaneously erasing and rewriting the nation's Islamic history to bolster Al-Saud
legitimacy. Indeed, Abdullah expanded government budgets to re-assert his role in a
modernizing world where the power of the constituency and radical fundamentalists threatened a
monarchy whose place in Saudi society was not guaranteed.

4.5. King Salman and his son: Modernizing authoritarianism

King Salman’s (2015-present) ascension to the throne demonstrated the ease with which the
ideologies of Saudi rule could be overturned. Although he argued that the nation's unity had
depended on the “stability, security, and unity” that Ibn Saud’s sons had provided, he
undermined many of the pillars on which Saudi rule had been built (Bsheer, 2020: 213). He
broke traditional alliances within the Al Saud establishment and connections the Royal family
had long held with the country’s economic elites and religious leaders (Bsheer, 2020). His
pragmatic and ruthless leadership style signalled that the royal regime’s political legitimacy was

23
no longer represented through the prestige of the absolute monarchy but through a paradigm of
violent authoritarianism.
Salman’s uncompromising political ideologies informed his son Mohammed’s
dynamism. Although his father remains the Head of State, the Crown Prince has been the de
facto ruler since 2017, acting as the kingdom's “overseer and CEO” to continue his father’s
authoritarian schemes (Hubbard, 2020). That same year, MBS announced his Vision 2030
flagship urban megaproject, NEOM, as a solution to the country’s economic ailments but also as
a socio-cultural experiment in religious tolerance. This top-down project is, in many ways, a
continuation of the royal family’s previous attempts to consolidate power through development.
But the uniquely authoritarian creed of NEOM’s seductive optics demonstrates an era of Al-Saud
family politics in which ambition trumps established identities.

4.6. Chapter conclusions: Keeping the house in power

In its ceaseless quest for dominance and security in the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi state
employed an ideological narrative that promoted the Al Saud family rule as the “only legitimate
and permissible form of political organization” (Bsheer, 2020). Distinctive leaders have
employed reactive politics since 1932: using religiosity, oil wealth, and infrastructural
development to maintain the House's power as they adapted to international and domestic
opposition. More recently, urban-specific development has served to create new grounds for
legitimacy for the Al-Saud family.
The Al-Saud dynasty must strike a delicate balance between modernization and tradition
to improve the kingdom’s global standing while maintaining political legitimacy. Decision-
making has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of the state as previously powerful
religious institutions are weakened in the name of development. As such, the regime's ambitious
and increasingly authoritarian style of rule has become evident in spatial policies of recent
decades.

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Chapter 5. KAEC and NEOM: Competing Visions of Saudi Futures
5.1. Introduction
As two new city projects being planned on an unprecedented scale, KAEC and NEOM are city-
centric expressions of Saudi Arabia’s path to a post-oil future by two distinct Saudi regimes.
Although both cities have been imagined to confront the major issues facing Saudi society, their
approaches to achieving this goal have varied (see Table 1). This chapter explores each city’s
conceptualization to distill the major differences and similarities between the two. A comparative
analysis will demonstrate how urban goals and imaginaries have evolved to reflect the
continuation of strong central leadership.

Table 5.1. Main characteristics of KAEC and NEOM

KAEC NEOM

Location Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia Tabuk Province, Saudi Arabia

Distance to Nearest City 50 km (Rabigh) 245 km (Tabuk)

Area (km2) 181 26,500

Year Announced 2005 2017

Intended Population 2 million 9 million

Current Population 10,000 in 2019 N/A

Urban Concept Economic City Innovation City

Legal System Economic Cities and Special Zones Authority govern the NEOM authority will enforce an autonomous legal
city, but no legal framework has been established. system separate from the Saudi justice system, whose
drafts have been written but not yet publicized.

CEO Cyril Piaia Nadhmi Al-Nasr

Language of Operation Arabic, English Arabic, English

Cost 375 Billion SR (100 Billion USD) 1.8 Trillion SR (500 Billion USD)

Anticipated Economic Manufacturing and Logistics, Shipping, Tourism, Real Manufacturing and Logistics, Shipping, Tourism, Real
Drivers Estate Estate, Digital Media, Sport, Technology, Clean Energy

Master Plan Zones Industrial Valley, King Abdullah Port, Hijaz Gate, Coastal Trojena (Mountain Resort), Oxagon (Logistics and
Communities: Al Shurooq, Al Waha, Al Talah Gardens, Manufacturing Port), The Line (Urban Development),
Bay La Sun, Al Murooj Sindalah (Luxury Island Destination)

25
5.2. The vision for KAEC
King Abdullah Economic City was announced in 2005 by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al
Saud, the former king of Saudi Arabia. The city and five other economic megaprojects
announced around the same time were part of the late King’s ‘10x10’ program to launch Saudi
Arabia into the top ten ranking of competitive investment destinations by 2010 (Rasooldeen I,
2009; Mouawad, 2008). Each new economic city was intended to create industrial centers that
would support job creation and provide housing to the country’s young and growing population.
But KAEC, the only project to successfully begin construction of the six, has since fallen short in
many of the areas that were supposed to make it a success and is widely seen as a failure.
The project's initial budget of $100 billion was the largest estimated investment for a new
city project at the time (Moser et al., 2015). To confront these expenses, the Saudi Arabian
General Investment Authority (SAGIA) partnered with the Dubai-based land and real estate
developer Emaar Properties to create a publicly-traded joint stock company called ‘Emaar the
Economic City’ (EEC). This public-private scheme involved the government funding the city’s
initial development while EEC attracted private investment from abroad and within Saudi Arabia
to sustain the city’s construction (Abdul Ghafour, 2006; Moser et al., 2015). Indeed, the
Kingdom’s initial enthusiasm for the project was reflected during its 2006 IPO when more than
half of all Saudis bought shares (Euromoney, 2006, as cited in Moser et al., 2015: 74). But credit
delays from the 2008 financial crisis combined with insufficient demand for KAEC’s real estate,
made it difficult for EEC to achieve sustained financing (Moser et al., 2015). More importantly,
after King Abdullah died in 2015, the project could no longer rely on the absolute government
backing that made it a secure and attractive investment to international financiers. KAEC has
since pivoted from mainly using private capital to build projects. In the spring of 2022, KAEC
partnered with the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which now holds 25% of EEC
shares, to guarantee that the city receives the necessary financing to remain afloat (Abuljadayel,
2022).
The complex financing scheme underpinning KAEC’s development has made the city’s
planning and construction a long process. Initial renderings conceptualized KAEC as a futuristic,
glittering metropolis aptly described as a blend of “Blade Runner” and traditional Arabic design
(Mouawad, 2008). But with the longstanding ramifications of the global economic crisis
amplifying low levels of investment since its initial funding, the project had to be reconsidered.

26
A more realistic masterplan for KAEC was created to utilize existing assets and pursue a more
standard development template. The new plan centres around a logistics and manufacturing hub
with a seaport and an industrial zone, as well as residential zones (see Fig. 5.1.). While the port
and industrial valley have successfully attracted foreign direct investment, the coastal
communities remain largely underdeveloped (see Fig. 5.2.). In denser areas, high-end villas with
lavish landscaping, golf courses, and pools comprise resort-like enclaves. The result has been an
urban form that is closer in appearance to Fort Lauderdale than that of any science fiction film
(see Fig. 5.3.)

Figure 5.1. KAEC's revised masterplan.

Source: KAEC Website.

27
 Figure 5.2. Undeveloped residential areas of KAEC.
Source: Google Earth.

Figure 5.3. KAEC's initial renderings (left) and current appearance (right).
Source: New York Times and KAEC Website.

KAEC has an area the size of Washington, DC, that is intended to house 2 million people
by 2035 (Al Omran, 2018). The city is strategically located along the new Haramain high-speed
rail line that connects the west coast cities of Mecca, Jeddah, and Medina to the King Abdulaziz
International Airport. But while these locational advantages and established assets are used to
justify city-building, they have yet to convince people to move there. Some scholars have
pointed to the case of China’s ‘ghost cities’ to illustrate how the speculative urbanization
strategies that economically driven new city developments employ often fail to meet actual
demographic demand, producing a surplus of under-utilized or vacant residential units (Moser &
Côté‐Roy, 2020). This phenomenon may be replicating in the case of Saudi Arabia: as of 2019,
KAEC’s total population was estimated to be 10,000 in 2019 (Debusmann Jr, 2019b).

28
 The issue of governance is one of the significant concerns deterring Saudis and foreigners
from investing in or relocating to this enclave. To facilitate its creation and better achieve its
urban imaginary, KAEC was envisioned as a socially liberal gated city governed by separate
rules from the rest of the country (Moser et al., 2015). This experiment in urban governance
promoted a distinct lifestyle for urban residents exempt from the religious norms imposed on the
rest of the kingdom (Moser & Côté‐Roy, 2020). It also demonstrates how Saudi development
strategies conform to contemporary city-making governance trends in which state and corporate
power often blend unintelligibly (Moser & Côté‐Roy, 2020). Indeed, the city is currently run by
a corporate management system that was established by royal decree: the Economic Cities and
Special Zones Authority have full administrative and financial supervision over KAEC, and the
city is patrolled by private security forces (Moser et al., 2015; Statute of the Economic Cities and
Special Zones Authority, ed. 2022). But no legal frameworks have been issued to protect
residents should their rights be infringed upon. Without these basic guarantees from the
government, many questions remain about how disputes between businesses and citizens will be
resolved, how they will be treated, and what norms will be enforced.
Nearly two decades and over 100 billion dollars later (Mckinsey, 2017), KAEC stands as
a “cautionary tale” (Al Omran, 2018) of the problems that can arise when states engage in
ambitious top-down urban projects. The rationale for KAEC’s inorganic creation was to build an
explicitly ‘economic city’ to develop Saudi Arabia’s physical and social infrastructure, tap into
Red Sea shipping routes, and attract foreign investment in Saudi Arabia to help create jobs. This
economic urban concept reflected King Abdullah’s ambitions to reform and diversify the
kingdom. But its financial and legal shortcomings highlight his lacklustre commitment to
developing the necessary policy structures that would allow KAEC to thrive.

5.3. The vision for NEOM

Just over a decade after King Abdullah’s project was announced, his nephew, MBS, proposed
another mega-project for the country's northwestern corner: NEOM. The NEOM development
was launched as the premier urban project in the Kingdom’s long list of undertakings to achieve
its Vision 2030 goals (Vision 2030 Website). Its highly ambitious and often lofty aspirations aim
to create an iconic development imaginary that re-situates the kingdom at the centre of global
new city projects.

29
 Construction has barely begun on NEOM, and its estimated cost of 500 billion dollars
dramatically exceeds that of KAEC (Procter, 2022). MBS has pursued a different approach to
urban financing for NEOM. Instead of a public-private scheme, MBS has placed NEOM under
the sole proprietorship of the country’s PIF (“Revealed: The 13 men and women leading Saudi
Arabia’s PIF”, 2022). NEOM’s association with the PIF, which has around $600 billion in assets
under management, guarantees that MBS can continuously fund his ambitious project while
ensuring its feasibility to investors. Once NEOM is more developed, it will likely be publicly
listed and follow a financing structure like that of KAEC, where the PIF still has a significant
stake in its development (Nereim, 2022).
The renderings for NEOM make KAEC’s master plan seem like an artifact of an ancient
past. While KAEC is big, NEOM is massive: 26,500 square kilometres have been allotted for its
development in the Tabuk Province, with talks of the project extending into Jordan and Egypt.
(Thomas & Venema, 2022). The masterplan boasts four different regions: OXAGON, a floating
industrial complex; TROJENA, a year-round mountain destination that will offer tourists skiing
in the desert; THE LINE, a 200m wide, 170km long, and 500m tall vertical city; and
SINDALAH, a luxury island and yacht club destination (see Fig. 5.4.). Each region attempts to
showcase NEOM as being more inventive than any global city, with a heavy emphasis on
futurism, technology, and sustainability. It seeks to surpass KAEC in every way, from the
physical area reserved for its various regions to the language used to describe and promote it.
The region is envisioned as an advanced international hub that will bring Saudi Arabia to
the world. Economic drivers like manufacturing and logistics, biotechnology, robotics, and clean
energy are anticipated to establish NEOM as a ‘smart city’ with cutting-edge technological
breakthroughs. Meanwhile, digital media, tourism, and sports investments will create a cultural
sector that will give Saudi Arabia a more prominent role in international discourse. Contracts
signed between NEOM and McLaren Racing, OceanX, and AFC tether the imagined space to
reality and keep its name circulating through global media networks.

30
 Figure 5.4. NEOM's Masterplan: 1. Oxagon 2. Trojena 3. The Line 4. Sindalah.
Source: NEOM Website.

The Line is NEOM’s flagship urban-focused region. This experiment in linear urbanism
is set to accommodate the entire population of New York City, 9 million people, in two parallel
glass-paned skyscrapers that stretch from within the ocean through to the desert, mountains, and
valleys of the Tabuk province (NEOM website). Its interior will include everything one would
expect to find in a major city: housing, parks, shops, transit, and hospitals. These facilities are
meant to house everyone “from labourers to billionaires,” Ali Shihabi of NEOM’s advisory
board says (Thomas & Venema, 2022). But satellite images reveal a different reality: some of the
first construction projects in the area have been mansions, golf courses, and helipads (see Fig.
5.5), indicating that NEOM may be another Saudi megaproject that only caters to the ultra-rich
(Thomas & Venema, 2022).

31
 Figure 5.5. A satellite image shows parts of NEOM that have been built.
Source: Google Earth.

NEOM intends to avoid the same mistakes KAEC made concerning governance policy.
Reflecting its role as an economic driver for the Saudi economy, NEOM’s management has
shared that they are developing financial legislation based on international ‘best practices’ to
promote business growth. The city’s chief investment officer states that NEOM will be the
world's largest Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiative, revealing the city's
strategy to replicate international corporate governance structures (“NEOM ‘fully under Saudi
sovereignty, regulations’”, 2022). It is likely that residents of NEOM will also enjoy a distinct
legal and regulatory status determined by a designated authority. But this authority and its
decisions will ultimately be subordinate to King Salman and his son MBS. Critics of this liberal
enclave point out that the Saudi government must resist interfering in NEOM’s regulatory
framework if it wants the development to succeed commercially (Mogielnicki, 2022).
How these fantastical dreams will manifest in NEOM’s physical development is yet to be
determined. So far, the vision for NEOM is ambitious and wildly untested. Its advocates,
however, insist it will be a “civilizational revolution.” Without proof, they have claimed the Line
will provide “more time with loved ones” and “unparalleled access to nature” (NEOM

32
website). These guarantees of an urban utopia make the more realistic plans and organized
events, like Trojena’s bid to host the 2029 Winter Asian Games, seem questionable (“Saudi
Arabia to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games”, 2022). For NEOM to avoid the same pitfalls as
KAEC, it must stop announcing new initiatives for media fodder and begin developing its
existing plan.

5.4. Changing geopolitical realities: Analyzing KAEC and NEOM

The NEOM endeavour demonstrates that Saudi leadership believes they have learned from the
mistakes made at KAEC. Both cities have emerged from the Al-Saud family’s top-down
structure to diversify the oil-dependent economy. But their marked differences illustrate each
leader's unique city-building rationales and ambitions. Comparing the two places provides
insight into Saudi Arabia's domestic political geography and how it has evolved since the early
2000s.

5.4.1 City-centric similarities

Both KAEC and NEOM share similar city-centric assumptions about national economic
development. KAEC emerged from King Abdullah’s ‘10x10’ program to develop the kingdom's
economy beyond the oil industry. Similarly, NEOM and other infrastructure projects are
considered the ‘crown jewel’ of MBS’ Vision 2030 initiative, which too aims to reduce Saudi
Arabia's dependence on oil. For both leaders, planned urban projects are the primary modality to
‘leapfrog’ the Saudi economy toward tertiary sectors. They believe urban infrastructure will
attract foreign investment in Saudi Arabia, providing jobs to the kingdom’s rapidly growing,
youthful population.
This city-centric approach is mainly due to the increasing connections and
interdependence between the world’s cities. In the era of globalization, cross-border trade in
goods and services can create thriving economic nodes in all regions of the world. Often, cities
or special economic zones (SEZs) are the portals for international economic participation. King
Abdullah and MBS have tried to join these global networks through massive new urban
spectacles that demonstrate their commitment to the hegemonic values of the international
community. They have both dreamt of urban developments at an unprecedented scale to launch
Saudi Arabia into the global markets that glittering metropolis’ represent.

33
 KAEC and NEOM have similar economic drivers that reflect the desire of Saudi
leadership to diversify its economy away from oil. Manufacturing and logistics, shipping,
tourism, and real estate are all desired sectors for each city. Saudi leaders are especially hopeful
that developing ports will cement the kingdom as a trade and logistics gateway, forming the
foundations of its future economy.
Location is an important consideration for both cities as they seek to develop midstream
logistics activities. KAEC and NEOM are both located on the western coast of the country. This
orientation reflects Saudi leadership’s desire to shift the country’s centre of economic power
away from the oil-rich Persian Gulf in the East to the Red Sea in the West (Bsheer, 2020: 221).
KAEC can leverage its proximity to the new Haramain high-speed rail line, the King Abdulaziz
International Airport, and the nearby King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
(KAUST). Meanwhile, NEOM benefits from its closeness to the Suez Canal and short flight path
to Europe. Both regimes have recognized how Saudi Arabia must shift its economic priorities for
longevity and have used urban development in critical nodes to create these new geopolitical
realities.

5.4.2 NEOM’s traits: Correcting KAEC’s mistakes

However similar their globalized city-centric approach may be, the two cities are disparate in
their ethos. KAEC has pursued a more measured approach to new city-building. Traditional
formulas for organic city growth have largely inspired its creators, whereas NEOM’s planners
have pursued instantaneous success. KAEC has laid the foundations for a port city, hoping the
industrial town will eventually evolve into a white-collar business hub. Meanwhile, NEOM is
designed to be an international hub from the outset. Its slogan: ‘made to change,’ adopts an ‘any
means necessary’ attitude for city building. Indeed, the plans for the city subvert all historical
models of how prosperous towns have traditionally grown. This aggressive plan demonstrates
Saudi leadership's frustration with the slow pace of KAEC’s development. MBS seeks to rewrite
King Abdullah’s formula for new city growth by envisioning a city that is too big to fail.
MBS believes the unprecedented scale of NEOM will differentiate it from KAEC. KAEC
pails in comparison to NEOM in every way possible. NEOM’s planned area will be 150 times
bigger than that of KAEC, with more regions spanning its territory and a much larger population.
It will also serve more sectors, hosting a diversity of economic drivers beyond logistical

34
activities. Of course, this is reflected in its price: NEOM is expected to cost the kingdom five
times more than KAEC has thus far. MBS is sparing no expense when it comes to his own
version of a Saudi new city project.
The different ideologies between the two cities are represented by their urban imaginary.
KAEC’s name explicitly states whom it was built by and what it was built for. Its promotional
materials are mainly directed toward Saudi nationals, showing the city as a lovely retreat for
families (KAEC Website; Radwan, 2021). The Saudi culture of the city is also reflected in the
names of neighbourhoods and streets marked by Arabic toponyms. On the other hand, NEOM’s
regions are ambiguously named in ways that do not reflect Saudi culture. It is envisioned as a
destination for unparalleled global tourism with promotional materials illustrating a
cosmopolitan hub. This is reflected in its name: a portmanteau of the Greek word for new (neo)
combined with the letter ‘m’ to represent an abbreviation of the Arabic word for future
(mostaqbal) and the initial of the Crown Prince’s first name. NEOM demonstrates MBS’ vision
for the kingdom's ‘new future’ as it opens to the world.

5.4.3 Cutting through bureaucracy

Another significant difference between the two city visions is their approach to urban
governance. While KAEC’s team never successfully established a legal framework that would
provide the clarity and predictability necessary to attract citizens, businesses, and international
governments to invest in and re-locate to their development, NEOM’s leadership will. The city's
website states that “NEOM will provide a regulatory framework that is conducive to investors’
participation through their inclusion in the drafting of regulation and legislation” and that NEOM
will be “supported by a progressive law compatible with international norms and conducive to
economic growth” (NEOM website). The legal system will likely cater to an international
audience by legalizing the sale of alcohol (Michaelson, 2020) and other Western norms. This
‘founding law’ will establish NEOM as an efficient and streamlined ‘free zone’ with different
laws than the rest of Saudi Arabia that will take time to reform (Carey, G. et al., 2023; Nereim &
Gamal El-Din, 2021).
The drafting of NEOM’s progressive law is taking place against a backdrop of judicial
reform across the kingdom. Previously, the kingdom had no codified legal system (Turak, 2021).
But as of 2021, MBS has been introducing various legal reforms to increase the reliability of

35
court rulings and procedures in an effort to make Saudi Arabia a more attractive place for
international business (Turak, 2021). These dramatic reforms demonstrate MBS’ frustration with
the faltering of Saudi economic plans of the past and his commitment to his Vision 2030 agenda.
As a microcosm of these goals, NEOM stands to be a liberal enclave that pitches itself as a
destination for international business in more effective ways than KAEC ever did.

5.4.4 Money no object

Beyond the legal overhaul MBS is conducting to see NEOM succeed, he is also making a
substantial financial commitment to the project. While KAEC’s development primarily relied on
a complex financing structure, NEOM is government funded. This means that MBS is not
pursuing the same public-private scheme as King Abdullah but rather committing all the cash
needed for the project to succeed from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Government
funding allows NEOM’s leadership to be far more ambitious in its planning and promises. The
guarantee of financial backing contributes to a healthy project cash flow that gives plenty of
room for contingencies, experimentation, and failure. Moreover, it highlights MBS’ commitment
and confidence in NEOM’s eventual success.

5.4.5 Possible challenges moving forward

The differences in conceptualizations between KAEC and NEOM reflect the problems with new
city-building in authoritarian contexts. KAEC’s namesake is no longer King; therefore, the city
is no longer at the center of Saudi national development projects. The time, energy, and
financing that once surrounded KAEC have shifted to MBS’ NEOM. MBS is naturally inclined
to dedicate himself to the project that will one day shape his legacy, and that is where the money
goes. In this way, the self-aggrandizing nature of these spectacular urban projects contradicts the
Kingdom's national development goals as it antagonizes the two cities.
Without a coherent plan for how KAEC and NEOM will work together, the two cities
will constantly compete (Debusmann Jr, 2019a). KAEC’s position as a publicly-listed company
leaves it especially vulnerable, and it is less attractive to investors now that its namesake is dead.
Investors will likely invest in NEOM, which receives the prince’s energy and attention. This
competition will only worsen when NEOM eventually goes public, as both cities will be subject
to market forces. Since their development depends on continuous economic support through

36
government spending and private investment, they will have to compete to attract the type of
jobs, migration, and financing that will raise their stock price. This may lead to an uneven level
of development that will make it more difficult to achieve the Kingdom’s overall goal of
diversifying the Saudi Arabian economy.

5.5. Chapter conclusions: City rivalries and remaining competitive

The two projects are remarkably ambitious, with a high level of funding and a demonstrable
desire to alter the Saudi economy's principal economic drivers. But just like the Saudi leaders
they are connected to, they vary remarkably. KAEC is a measured approach to new city building
that attracts investment by attempting to create a modern built environment for wealthy Saudi
nationals and regional tourists. Meanwhile, NEOM is an aggressive pitch for a city of the future
that will attract a global community of innovators. This shift in urban imaginaries reflects how
Saudi leadership’s priorities have changed since the early 2000s as they have grown more
impatient with the urban development model.
These changing political geographies also raise questions about how KAEC and NEOM
will fit into Saudi Arabia’s national development agenda. It is difficult to see how the two cities
will complement each other when NEOM aims to provide all the same services as KAEC and
more. This incoherent national strategy reflects the competitive nature of the House of Saud in
which each royal member is determined to maintain power and establish their legacy.

37
Chapter 6. Cities to Save a Kingdom: Re-Branding Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is using new cities to reinvent itself on a national and international level. While the
spatial manifestations of this have been discussed in the previous chapter, this chapter explores
the latent political benefits Saudi leadership seeks. Analyzing both projects in the context of new
city literature and Saudi political policy reveals how urban imaginaries, as meaningfully
constructed representations (Lindner & Meissner, 2018; McCann, 2011), are a powerful
mechanism to maneuver Saudi Arabia in political directions that favour the monarchy. Their
place-branding mechanisms create a new narrative for Saudi Arabian society.

6.1. Urban networking for soft power

While the kingdom’s interest in diversification remains a driving factor for its agenda, aligning
international interests through city-building initiatives also strengthens its soft power (Alhussein,
2022). Elsheshtawy argues that cities in West Asia and beyond are increasingly used to
symbolize a thriving sovereign state culture (2004). They are viewed as global centres of
interaction from which a country can communicate its “wealth, power and modernity” for
increased influence in world affairs (Moser et al., 2015: 71). Indeed, Saudi leadership uses
discursive and material city-branding activities to imbue the kingdom’s urban imaginary with
global significance, putting it on par with other world centres like Dubai and Singapore (Ong,
2011). Insertion into these international urban networks allows the Saudi state to bolster its
national and international influence, further fostering its soft power potential.
Participation in the “new-city realm” (Moser, 2019: 213), where urban policies, norms,
and aesthetics circulate, allows Saudi leadership to play a prominent role in the urban
development industry (Cook & Ward, 2012; McCann, 2011). Saudi Arabia has hosted multiple
urban policy and innovation conferences to show the world its new city-building expertise. From
2013-2015, the country hosted the annual Cityquest KAEC Forum, a new-cities-themed meeting
for political leaders, new city developers, and corporate players from across the globe to network
and share insights on master-planned urbanization (Moser, 2019). Similarly, a showcase of
NEOM was held over four days at the 2023 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to
show the vision of NEOM to world leaders in politics, business, and the media (Laughlin, 2023).
In each case, these conferences constitute “mobility events” (Clarke, 2012: 27), where urban
policies are mobilized and embedded in ways that contribute to the authority of new city

38
narratives (Cook and Ward, 2012: 139). National governments and business elites present these
resource-intensive and high-risk planning interventions to an exclusive list of visitors as
necessary investments for Saudi Arabia’s post-oil future (Moser, 2019). By projecting a sense of
urgency for master-planned projects to address challenges related to urbanization, they reinforce
the idea that new cities are a necessary development model, thereby validating the often-self-
important grandeur of their designs and the leaders who aspire to create them.
These urbanistic initiatives have created numerous opportunities for building strategic
ties with international state partners. Saudi Arabia emphasizes that NEOM’s neoliberal ideology
makes it an appropriate locale for cooperation and investment between Saudi Arabia and leading
economic nations (Dogan, 2021). Indeed, during the G20 summit in 2020, British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson stated that he would have liked to visit the “exciting new city of NEOM” at the
showcase planned for visiting politicians. (“PM Boris Johnson on G20—Saudi Arabia’s NEOM
represents a greener future for all”, 2020). Russia has also expressed interest in the new city.
During MBS’ visit to the country in 2017, the Russian Investment Fund declared it would like to
co-invest with other international funds in the megaproject (“Russia’s sovereign investment fund
to participate in Saudi NEOM project”, 2017). These are all examples of how the NEOM project
serves as a showcase to woo diplomatic partners (Dogan, 2021).
In this way, new city-building goes beyond infrastructure development's social and
economic benefits. For Saudi Arabia, the new-city cultural apparatus is an opportunity to project
the nation's expertise onto a new field beyond oil. Exhibitions of urban policy innovation have
allowed Saudis to “take on the mantle” of experts on building new cities (Moser, 2019: 224).
This newfound importance has helped expand Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic opportunities,
strengthening its foreign policy and improving its global public image.

6.2. Urban development as a distraction

Beneath the carefully constructed narratives of these massive urban spectacles lies an
undercurrent of repression that contradicts their progressive visions. It is important to note that
KAEC and NEOM emerged from mounting criticism of the regime's human rights record. King
Abdullah and MBS turned to urban development to foment pride in the population while
projecting a modern image to the rest of the world that helps maintain the Saud family’s

39
influence in the region and globally. This politically astute strategy distracts the media from
criticizing the regime and helps to create more neutral and, at times, favourable public opinion.
King Abdullah is remembered for his paradoxical reign. Widely seen as a reformist, the
King was lauded by domestic and foreign leaders for his modernization of Saudi Arabia’s state
apparatus. He also promoted Saudi women in politics, allowed for more debate in the media, and
supported higher education opportunities for Saudis to study abroad (“King Abdullah: A Look
Back At His 10-Year Rule”, 2015; Coogle, 2015). But these prospects for advancement were cut
short after the 2011 Arab Spring. Threatened by the pro-democracy protests, he abruptly changed
course to stifle domestic criticism (Coogle, 2015). His crackdown on political and human rights
advocates and a lack of consistency in women's rights policy revealed his regime's paradoxical
nature. As a result, many began to question his commitment to reforming Saudi Arabia.
KAEC is a manifestation of King Abdullah’s contradictory politics. When the project
was announced, it was touted as a socially liberal gated city that reflected King Abdullah’s
efforts to rejuvenate the ultraconservative Islamic theocracy. The city’s master plan and
promotional materials excited a global audience because they showed a different vision of Saudi
Arabia that was progressive, business-friendly, and cosmopolitan (Ouroussoff, 2010). It
demonstrated a marked attempt by the Saudi leadership to create tangible change in the country.
However, like many of King Abdullah’s other reforms, the city remains a smokescreen. The
unwillingness of King Abdullah to relinquish power in any meaningful way is reflected in the
city’s failure during its repeated rethinks to develop a two-system legal policy that would have
allowed for the type of international business growth it sought.
MBS’ rule has taken Saudi leadership’s contradictions to new heights. The kingdom's
young, de facto leader is vying for a new era of economic and social reforms. He has invested in
domestic industry, modernized judicial structures, and begun to liberalize cultural and
entertainment programs (Ignatius, 2017). But this seemingly genuine commitment to reform is
shrouded by violence and intolerance for dissent. Since MBS became crown prince, there have
been waves of mass arrests of women's rights activists and political rivals as well as a steep
increase in the number of executions in the kingdom (“Mohammed bin Salman: The dark side of
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince”, 2020). The gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by
Saudi officials in 2018 exemplifies how intolerant the royal establishment remains towards

40
outspoken critics of their modernization efforts (“Mohammed bin Salman: The dark side of
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince”, 2020).
With this in mind, it is hard to see MBS’ reforms as anything more than a “slick PR
exercise,” with NEOM as its frontrunner (“Mohammed bin Salman: The dark side of Saudi
Arabia’s crown prince”, 2020). The spectacular city distracts from the atrocious record of human
rights violations he continues to build. This endeavour has been successful in many ways: global
dialogue remains optimistic that the city, with its claims of progress and futurism, will bring
progressive change to Saudi Arabia. More importantly, investors consider the money in Saudi
Arabia to be “too big to ignore” (Guyer, 2022). The increasing number of sporting events hosted
under NEOM’s name and the contracts signed with world-renowned brands like McLaren
Racing demonstrates how global discourse has shifted in MBS’ favour. NEOM continues to
attract worldwide attention and rehabilitate MBS’ name while he centralizes his economic and
political power by silencing dissent.
KAEC and NEOM exemplify Koch’s observation of the “stark contrast[s]” that emerge
between urban imaginaries and their surrounding contexts when governments engage in statist
spectacles (2018: 2). Under the guise of state-led reform, the spectacular cities of KAEC and
NEOM have projected symbols of modernity and progress to the world by appropriating globally
circulating urban imaginaries. These flashy facades obscure the reality of what is happening
within Saudi Arabia and have helped deflect criticism from King Abdullah and MBS’ human
rights abuses. In this way, the national narratives expressed in these urban imaginaries are
intimately linked to legitimacy projects for authoritarian leadership (Koch, 2014b; Koch, 2022).
New city discourse is a red herring for an increasingly oppressive regime.

6.3. New city building towards a secular future

As the country’s governing structures are centralized, new city projects are helping the House of
Sa’ud rewrite the kingdom's history. A vital aspect of this has been marginalizing the religious
establishment from politics, law, and history to further link the stability of the state to Al-Saud
leadership (Alhussein, 2022). For example, a royal decree issued in 2022 declared February 22nd
as the kingdom's “Founding Day” (Yaakoubi, 2022). The anniversary is 18 years before what
historians consider the beginning of the Saudi state: when Ibn Saud allied with Mohammed ibn
Abd al-Wahhab whose purist doctrine is often called Wahhabi Islam. This new national holiday

41
uproots Wahhabi influence from Saudi state formation by shifting focus to the Al Saud family. It
is a marked attempt, among others, to tie the state’s identity to the royal family in a new type of
Saudi nationalism.
The developments of KAEC and NEOM demonstrate how the new history of Saudi
Arabia is being territorialized. New cities alter the material culture of Saudi Arabia’s archive by
imagining and creating spaces whose planning and architecture silence past Saudi narratives
(Bsheer, 2020; Trouillot & Carby, 2015). For example, the architectural design of KAEC to date
has been generically global with little connection to Saudi religion and culture (see Fig. 6.1.)
(Moser et al., 2015). NEOM will likely share a similarly dubious aesthetic as its futuristic
megacity renderings put it on a similar trajectory towards impersonal design. Like many other
top-down national identity projects (See Vale, 2008), the regime has employed this urban
development strategy to re-orient the kingdom away from Arabia’s historical formations to serve
political ends. These real and imagined spatial configurations erode other historical forces
essential to Saudi state formation and enshrine the supremacy of Al-Saud leadership in the
kingdom's past, present, and future.

Figure 6.1. Generic ‘western’ architectural design in KAEC.

Source: KAEC Website.

Markedly, new cities play a large part in bulldozing the Saudi state's religious origins. As
experiments in religious tolerance, KAEC and NEOM break with the ultraconservative religious
past that accompanied the development of state institutions. The cities are advertised as

42
pluralistic and socially liberal spaces. These seductive discourses downplay the pivotal role of
religion in the state’s founding and foreground the importance of its secular dynastic history.
New cities have become a part of the historical archive as urban space is increasingly
seen as a mechanism to deconstruct and reconstruct Saudi Arabian identity (Bsheer, 2020). Saudi
leadership uses these spaces to rewrite the kingdom’s narrative in which the royal family’s role
in state formation is central, and its ties to Wahhabism are forgotten. The lavish urban spectacles
of KAEC and NEOM reflect this as they attempt to project state superiority above all else –
including religious splendour.

6.4. Chapter conclusions: New cities for a new national identity

This chapter has demonstrated that new cities are informed by, and are used to serve, the Al Saud
political apparatus. The international networks that encourage urban imaginaries empower
leaders like King Abdullah and MBS to communicate their modernity to national and global
audiences through extravagant urban spectacles that often contradict on-the-ground political
realities (Bagaeen, 2007; Lindner & Meissner, 2018; McCann, 2011; Ong, 2011). Their
increased participation in these global urban policy networks provides them diplomatic
opportunities to distract from their grave human rights record. This urban policy has also served
to consolidate the Al Saud regime. Indeed, KAEC and NEOM city brands have been
instrumental in publicizing a new Saudi Arabian identity based more on its royal institution than
its religious one. They promote a version of Saudi statehood that celebrates the Al Saud, placing
the family at the centre of Saudi Arabian life.
By connecting with relevant urban studies literature about urban policy mobility, urban
imaginaries, and authoritarian spatialities, I have highlighted how globally circulating rationales
for city-building projects are embedded in the Saudi context to legitimize the Al Saud regime
and their construction of a new national identity through urban initiatives. This has the effect of
re-writing Saudi Arabian history to favour the government, consolidating its political power
domestically, and bolstering its soft power capabilities internationally.

43
Chapter 7. Discussion and Conclusion
The central focus of this thesis has been examining how top-down development imaginaries
drive Saudi Arabian new city projects. Through analyzing the development of KAEC and
NEOM, I have investigated the rationales, imaginaries, and politics that underpin Saudi Arabia’s
new-city building activities. My analysis demonstrates how Al Saud legitimation politics propel
new city projects. By perpetuating city-centric assumptions about national development, King
Abdullah and MBS constructed urban imaginaries to express their regime's promise. This
authoritarian self-promotion shines through in KAEC and NEOM’s masterplans and the
discursive politics surrounding their development. The two cities are differentiated expressions
of Saudi Arabia’s path to a post-oil future, with NEOM illustrating MBS’ intense ambition to
create a new Saudi Arabia open to the world and under his control.
This final chapter summarizes this study’s key arguments, conceptual contributions, and
empirical findings. First, I outline the primary results of each chapter in this thesis and how it
addresses the research questions. Second, I summarize the key conceptual ideas explored in this
study. Third, I offer several directions for future research outside of the limitations of this
research.

7.1. Chapter summaries

In chapter 1 of this thesis, Introduction, I broadly outlined the context of my research and
provided general background on Saudi Arabia’s national city-building strategy for economic
development. Chapter 2, Literature Review, reviewed the main strands of scholarship that I
utilized and contributed to in this thesis, which I categorized as 1) Contemporary new city
building, 2) Globally circulating urban imaginaries for national development, and 3)
Authoritarian spatialities. Then in Chapter 3, Methodology, I discussed and explained the
qualitative methods I used as part of this research: historical analysis, discourse analysis, and
content analysis. Accordingly, Chapter 4, Historical Context, analyzes Saudi Arabian history as
told by the line of succession to situate KAEC and NEOM within contemporary Saudi
authoritarian politics. Chapter 5, Comparing KAEC and NEOM, contributes a comprehensive
overview of city-building activities in Saudi Arabia by critically investigating the main rationales
for new city-building in the kingdom and how they inform urban imaginaries. These drivers are
explored further in Chapter 6, Cities to Save a Kingdom: Re-branding Saudi Arabia, which

44
highlights how the kingdom’s participation in global urban policy networks has provided the
regime with national and international political opportunities.

7.2. Contributions and significance of findings

Overall, this thesis helps advance understanding of how globally circulating new city ideas are
mobilized in Saudi Arabia’s unique political context. Through my research objectives, this thesis
simultaneously outlines commonalities between the Saudi city-building context and global city-
building trends while underscoring some distinctive characteristics and particularities of new
city-building in Saudi Arabia. Although the media coverage of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious new
city-building activities has been immense, the phenomenon has received little scholarly attention.
With some of the world’s most expensive new city projects underway, Saudi Arabia is a leading
city-building country in the Gulf region and represents a particularly relevant example to expand
our understanding of some of the political underpinnings of the new city-building phenomenon.
Through a case study of the political dimensions behind two of Saudi Arabia’s most significant
projects to date, this thesis offers one of the first analyses of the complex dynamism reinforcing
new city-building efforts in the Kingdom.
This research has situated KAEC and NEOM within the historical currents of the House
of Saud’s quest for power. As strategies for confronting the country’s diminishing oil reserves
and changing demographics, the two projects represent a city-centric approach to development
that will quell domestic unrest and preclude international criticism. In some ways, these reactive
policies to maintain power are congruous with the Al-Saud political ethos of the past. At the
same time, however, MBS's bullish approach to building NEOM differentiates the project from
King Abdullah’s more measured KAEC. As a marked attempt to outdo KAEC, NEOM’s
spectacular urban imaginary highlights how the authoritarian politics within the House of Saud’s
legitimacy campaigns manifest in new city projects.
Thus, my research has contributed to several strands of urban studies scholarship. By
helping answer questions about the main rationales and actors involved in new city-building in
Saudi Arabia, I have contributed to the theorization and characterization required for scholars to
better understand the global new city-building trend. Exploring how these rationales and the
policies they inform manifest in urban imaginaries has also allowed me to deepen our
understanding of the mechanisms involved in creating urban visions. Lastly, by contextualizing

45
Saudi Arabia’s new city-building activities within the Kingdom’s political context, I have shed
light on space's central ideological role in authoritarian politics and the kingdom's unique
engagement with the global city-building trend.

7.3. Directions for future research

Through the process of writing this thesis, several avenues for future research emerged that were
informed by what I encountered in my analysis and the broader themes that I could not pursue
due to the limitations of this study. First, while I focused my analysis on the two major Saudi
new-city projects to be announced in recent decades, various master-planned projects have been
introduced as part of Vision 2030. A comparative study of NEOM, Qiddiya, King Salman
Energy Park, AIUIa, and other PIF-backed urban initiatives would be valuable to examine how
the national approach to new city-building varies across space and social contexts (Vision 2030
Website). Second, although my research touched on how new cities are informed by global
networks of entrepreneurialism, it would be interesting to conduct a focused study on these cities
as extreme cases of entrepreneurial urbanism and explore how their plans are connected to global
capital investment flows in real estate. Finally, future research would benefit from on-the-ground
fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and interviews with planners, developers, investors, and residents to
evaluate how these projects come to be and how Saudi citizens of all backgrounds use and adapt
to the cities. This would provide insight into how global new-city plans impact the livelihood
practices of local people and urban migrants. Thus, as the subfield of research on contemporary
new cities is rapidly growing, these research areas, and many more, constitute fruitful avenues to
expand scholarship.

46
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Al-Rasheed, M. (2010). A history of Saudi Arabia (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
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Al-Rasheed, M. (2018). Introduction: The dilemmas of a new era. In Al-Rasheed, M. (Ed.),

Salman's legacy: The dilemmas of a new era in Saudi Arabia (pp.1-28). Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.

Bagaeen, S. (2007). Brand Dubai: The instant city; or the instantly recognizable city.
International Planning Studies 12(2): 173–197.

Bigelow, A.M. (2020). Mining language: Racial thinking, indigenous knowledge, and colonial
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KAEC Website: https://www.kaec.net/

NEOM Website: https://www.neom.com/en-us

Vision 2030 Website: https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/

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