The politician, writer, economist, and urban planning consultant Antoni Vives has lived for six and a half years in Saudi Arabia, at the service of Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), designing and driving the construction of the linear city Neom, in the desert at the northern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, on the Red Sea coast; a unique bet on sustainable modernity, conceived for architects and engineers as well as botanists. Civilization and nature: 170 km long, it is designed to run on renewable energy and for 9 million inhabitants who will not need to use cars, with all personal and collective services within a 5-minute reach. It is the largest open-air project in the world.