How Saudi Arabia’s spending spree reached the end of the line

I think the article gets at a real tension in Vision 2030: Saudi Arabia absolutely does need to diversify away from oil, but a lot of these projects seemed driven more by prestige and spectacle than by economic fundamentals.

There’s a difference between investing in human capital, logistics, tourism, manufacturing, and tech ecosystems versus trying to brute-force a futuristic global city into existence in the desert because consultants produced flashy renderings.

The Iran war is prompting some recalibration, but honestly some of these projects were already fizzling out.