Are you interested in city of NEOM and its history and future? 
Our summary today works with the book chapter titled The story of NEOM city: opportunities and challenges from 2019 by Alshimaa Aboelmakarem Farag, from the book titled New cities and community extensions in Egypt and the Middle East, published by Springer. 
Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see one of the biggest new city developments and this is a great preparation for the next interview with Richard Morrison. This chapter presents NEOM’s history, opportunities and challenges. Plus, I also included the ChatGPT service’s summary and pros and cons as a treat at the end of the episode.
As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

NEOM is planned to be a hub for advanced technology, renewable energy, and innovative industries, and is intended to be a model for future urban development.
The biggest opportunities are advanced technology and innovation, sustainability, and quality of life for this project.
The biggest challenges are the costs, displacement, political instability, unknown timeline, only branding without substance, economic downturn, and social challenges.

You can find the chapter through this link.
Abstract: The story of NEOM city starts when the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the launch of NEOM, the futuristic megacity, on the conference “Future Investment Initiative” in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at 24 October 2017. The Project’s promoters aspire to brand a new land where a plethora of unique development opportunities that could contribute to make NEOM a global hub for trade, innovation, and knowledge. The creative class around the world has been invited to participate in creating NEOM, with promises of a new life in a beautiful nature free place, and an independent economic zone with its own laws, taxes, regulations, and no restrictions. Future technology in transportation, growing and processing food, healthcare, internet of things, and digital air all should contribute to providing NEOM’s residents a unique lifestyle. The project that starts with a fanfare might face a number of challenges, whether at the present or in the future such as the abstention of investor’s participation in such a current economic situation in KSA after the decline of world oil price, resistance of conservatives, the neighbors countries’ supporting, in addition to the time challenge. There is also a fear of repeating the failed experiments as Saudi kingdom will not be able to bear its costs. The shortage of literature and references has been a big challenge when to write this article in such time, four months after the formal announcement of launching NEOM. However, this article raises several questions and inquires that help to predict future challenges that might face the decision makers and can be addressed if recognized early.
You can find the transcript through this link.
What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on wtf4cities.com website, where the shownotes are also available.
I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay