From the longest and strangest smart city in the world to Dubai’s 1400-meter-tall creek tower and from the plans of a completely new massive canal in Turkey to Dubai’s failed island projects, let’s take a look at some impossible mega projects and why they might be too insane to pull off. If you enjoy our content, make sure to leave a comment in the Comments section.
Number 4: The Line (Impossible Megaprojects)
New urban development projects are being planned all over the world, and many of them share the same vision of building a smart, eco-friendly city. For example, the Songdo International Business District in South Korea, the Forest City in Malaysia, or the New Administrative Capital in Egypt.
While some of these smart cities are actually being successfully implemented, most of them have failed to date and are maybe too ambitious in the first place. Recently, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia announced a whole new smart city called the Line. unlike normal cities, it stretches from the coast all the way 170 kilometers deep into the country along a single line.
On top of this unusual design, the futuristic city is supposed to have no cars and run completely on renewable energy. The concept consists of three layers: a surface-level area for citizens to walk and live in, two underground levels for the transportation of goods, and a passenger train.
It is planned that the line’s high-speed train will travel across the 170-kilometer-long city in just under 20 minutes. This high-speed line, however, is one of many doubts about the realization of the massive mega project. Building a transportation system that allows you to get from any point on the route to another in less than 20 minutes seems almost impossible.
Even if you got to your destination without stopping, the average speed of the train would have to be 510 kilometers per hour for comparison. China’s 35 billion-dollar bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai, one of the fastest commercial trains in the world, reaches speeds of just 380 kilometers per hour, but the train that would go below the line would have to be much faster than this.
In addition, thousands of people currently live at the planned site of the project, many of whom are already protesting against their removal. Relocating these people against their will would be highly controversial and could have an immense negative impact on the line. The mega project, which is intended to attract international customers, could quickly fall into disrepute as a result.
Finally, and probably the most important factor, is the funding of this project. Financing such a large mega project is extremely unrealistic, especially in the current economic climate. In total, the Saudi Arabian government would have to raise 500 billion dollars to make the line a reality.
This is more than the GDP of Greece, Croatia, and New Zealand combined, and even for Saudi Arabia, 500 billion dollars is not a bargain as they only have a GDP of 800 billion dollars themselves; hence, such a huge price is most likely far too high, even for a rich country like Saudi Arabia.
Overall, the line sounds more like a great concept for a science fiction movie, but what do you think will turn this project into reality one day? Let us know your thoughts in the comments
Number 3: Dubai Creek Tower
The Dubai Creek Tower in the United Arab Emirates was set to become the tallest man-made structure in the world. The tower is most likely being built in response to the construction of the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia.
The Jeddah Tower, which will be at least 1 000 meters high if finished, is currently trying to steal the title of the tallest building in the world from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Therefore, the developers in Dubai originally planned an even higher tower with a height of up to 1400 meters to defend the title.
The actual height of the tower was never revealed, probably because they don’t want to give any clues to the competition in Jedha. with a 360-degree view of the city and 10 different viewing platforms. The Dubai Creek Tower would set the record as the tallest supported building in the world.
However, after construction began on the mega project in 2016, it was soon stopped after the foundation was completed. Interesting enough, this was around the same time that construction of the Jetta Tower in Saudi Arabia stopped.
properties The owner of the project claims the mega project is on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic and not because of the Jetta Tower stop, but that the tower should still be finished by 2022. Even so, there has been no visible progress since 2018, but Jedha Tower’s failure may not be the only reason Dubai Creek Tower could fail.
No attempt has ever been made to build a structure of this height. Before the steel cables reaching the top of the tower would have to be over a kilometer long, the length and weight of this cable net could pose immense technical difficulties.
Perhaps a tower of this height is not yet possible with the materials and technologies available to us today. Apart from the engineering difficulties, it is still unclear whether the tower could even compete with the Jetta Tower for the tallest skyscraper in the world.
According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, at least 50 percent of the tower must be habitable to qualify as a skyscraper. However, the Dubai Creek Tower misses this target by twenty percent.
Number 2: Istanbul Canal
Turkey’s capital city, Istanbul, recently saw the start of one of the biggest megaprojects in its history: a new 50-kilometer-long water canal that connects the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea.
This makes it a little shorter than the 82-kilometer Panama Canal, but the Panama Canal actually solves a big problem and offers a much shorter route between the Pacific and the Atlantic.
The Istanbul Canal, however, would be right next to an already existing canal and would not offer the same benefits as the Panama Canal. So why is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan so interested in building this new canal? The official answer is to increase shipping capacity in the region and reduce waiting times for ships.
The president claimed that within the next few decades, the number of yearly ships will grow to more than 50 000. This would be a major reversal of the current trend, which recorded a massive decline from around 53 000 to 38 000 ships per year, which can be explained primarily by an increased number of pipelines, even if it could improve travel efficiency for ships.
most people in turkey and around the world are against the construction of the istanbul canal probably also because erdogan’s real intentions lie elsewhere next to the planned istanbul canal is the already existing bosphorus canal which does not earn any money for turkey as a 1936 treaty allows all but military ships to pass through the canal free of charge.
this is unfortunate for turkey because every year more ships use this canal than the suez and panama canal combined in addition the bosphorus is the only way to get into the black sea and russia’s only way to get into the mediterranean sea the istanbul canal could change all of this and earn turkey and erdogan billions of dollars every year a project of this size would also create thousands of jobs and further boost the economy though president erdogan is excited about the potential financial revenue that the project could bring and believes that his dream project is the most eco-friendly project in the world.
Turkish residents are not thrilled the canal would be dug in an area that provides 40 percent of istanbul’s water supply and could irreversibly contaminate the groundwater reserves in addition the construction of this canal would displace tens of thousands of people destroy hundreds of thousands of trees and turn part of istanbul into an island.
if building a 50-kilometer long canal was not enough turkey’s President Erdogan also wants to include a high-speed railway in the mega project, while the exact costs of such an extravagant project are unknown.
Estimates bring the price tag anywhere from 50 to 65 billion dollars. The environmental damage and costs of such a huge megaproject and the international protests against the project show that the Istanbul Canal may never be completed.
Number 1: Dubai Islands
For our last megaproject, we are going back to Dubai, where one of the largest artificial islands in the world is located, just like the Creek Tower. This cluster of islands should attract tourists from all over the world.
Dubai originally planned to build an almost impossible number of islands and completely transform its coastline. The first of these island collections was the palm jumeirah, whose construction began in 2001.
The rapid progress inspired new ambitious plans and shortly after the construction of the palm jabel ali and the world was started however even today almost 20 years later these islands are still unfinished and almost completely empty but dubai had even bigger plans namely the construction of the palmdera an artificial island 10 times the size of the palm jumeirah but as you probably guessed this project also failed and was massively scaled down especially.
after 2008 financing these aspirational projects became a huge challenge but while many of dubai’s island projects failed because of funding the only fully completed island project the palm jumeirah could also face major problems in the foreseeable future various sources claim that.
the palm jumeirah is sinking half a centimeter every year the developers denied these claims but two years later an independent company penguin marine provided evidence of the island’s erosion but even if this is not true the biggest problem for the islands will be rising sea levels.
The IPCC estimates that the sea level will rise between 25 and 200 centimeters by the end of the century, depending on the climate scenarios, and even if the rise does not completely flood the islands in the foreseeable future, it seems reasonable that more and more costly measures have to be undertaken in order to maintain the projects and to fight against the water.
If you consider the number of failed island projects in Dubai and the immense challenges that the palm jumeirah will face in the future, you can say that these projects are not exactly a success.
What do you think about the future of these megaprojects? Let us know in the comments down below if you want to see more about similar projects. You can watch our video about the biggest megaprojects that never finished.
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