As you drive from Jeddah to the Red Sea coast, the desert suddenly breaks up into cranes, pylons, and a steel forest. As the wind blows fine dust around their boots, workers in hard hats squint into the sun. A concrete core pushes up, floor by dizzying floor, following a line on a drawing that ends at the number 1,000 meters. Billboards around the site show a bright future: luxury apartments in the clouds, infinity pools floating above the haze, and a new “global icon” that will be the face of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
The pictures on social media look like something out of a science fiction movie.
The question is more down-to-earth on the streets of Saudi Arabia.
When a tower turns into a mirror
The planned 1km Jeddah Tower looks less like a building and more like a gesture yelled at the sky from far away. The size of the building changes the city’s skyline, almost making fun of gravity and common sense. Officials say that this spike of concrete and steel shows that Saudi Arabia has entered a new era and is ready to compete with Dubai, Shanghai, and New York on its own terms.
But if you get closer, the tower starts to look less like progress and more like a mirror. It shows everything the kingdom wants to be and everything it still wants to hide.
The numbers alone have the strange quality of a billionaire’s daydream. It was planned for a tower to go up one kilometre. More than 160 floors that people can live on. A construction bill that could cost billions of dollars is part of a larger megaproject plan that includes NEOM, The Line, and a string of futuristic resorts along the Red Sea.
But when you talk to young Saudis in Jeddah cafés, they always ask practical questions. What are the prices of homes in older neighbourhoods? What about scholarships, lines at the hospital, and public transportation that doesn’t involve long car rides? They say that the tower feels like watching a fancy fireworks show while still worrying about paying the rent.
This is the strange tension that lies at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s current boom. The state is working quickly to move its economy away from oil, using “spectacular architecture” to draw in tourists, investors, and influencers. Megaprojects are as much about politics as they are about city planning. They are meant to show that the kingdom is modern, open, and unstoppable.
But every riyal that goes into a monument that reaches the sky is a riyal that can’t be used for smaller, quieter things. Schools open to the public. Sidewalks that don’t break. Cultural centers that don’t need a royal ribbon to be important. The tower is supposed to be a beacon, but for many people, it also looks like a receipt.
Who pays when dreams go up?
The story gets clearer when you follow the money. The Jeddah Tower is a private project that is officially backed by a mix of Saudi investors and real estate funds. In reality, nothing like this in the kingdom happens without strong ties to state wealth and political support. The Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is the most important part of Saudi finance, is at the center of these projects. It brings in money from other countries and spreads its influence at home.
The sun still gets its energy from oil. The dream goes up a few more meters when the price of crude goes up. The cranes slow down when it falls.
When economists in Riyadh talk about “opportunity cost,” they do so in a careful way. Each megaproject ties up tens of billions of dollars for years, even decades. A few shiny areas get money that could bring life back to old city centers in smaller towns or raise wages in areas that don’t get enough funding. A teacher in Taif doesn’t need an observatory floor that breaks records. She doesn’t need so much paperwork, and her classroom shouldn’t be so full.
We’ve all been there: the boss decides the company needs a new headquarters while the coffee maker is still broken. That reasoning hurts a little more on a national level.
There is also the hidden cost that no one talks about in the shiny brochures: social pressure. When the state bets so heavily on spectacle, everyone in the country is drawn into the story. You don’t just live in Saudi Arabia anymore; you live in “the Saudi Arabia that built the tallest tower on Earth.” People should feel proud. Doubt sounds ungrateful.
People do voice their doubts, though, in private WhatsApp groups and anonymous X accounts. They want to know why land near megaprojects suddenly costs so much. They want to know who really owns the views from those high-up penthouses.They want to know why the “new Saudi” looks so expensive from the ground floor.
A new time of vanity, or a turning point?
Go back a few skylines if you want to understand the vanity angle. The tallest building in the world has jumped from New York to Chicago, Kuala Lumpur to Taipei, Dubai to Shanghai, and back again, each time with a lot of national pride and commercial hype. The Burj Khalifa sold more than just apartments; it sold the idea that Dubai had arrived. Saudi Arabia sat back and watched all of this happen.
Now it wants the crown, not just to show off, but to show that its old identity of oil, conservatism, and closed doors is over. The 1km mark has more to do with psychology than with engineering.
This is where things start to get emotional. Just like many Emiratis did with the Burj, many Saudis really get excited when they see the renderings. For years, their country was in the news for bad things. Now, people are talking about it in terms of design and ambition. It’s hard to ignore that feeling of “Look, we can do this too.”
But the same people who are proud to show their foreign friends tower videos also sigh when their salary hits their bank account. Let’s be honest: no one really does this every day: stare at the skyline and forget how much rice costs. Pride doesn’t make pressure go away. It just sits next to it, which is a little strange.
There is a more complicated question than vanity: whose future is this? A lot of the talk about Vision 2030 is aimed at a young, globalised generation that wants things to change. But **real change** almost never comes from one brave structure. It usually comes from a lot of small, boring changes, like labour laws that work, courts that are easy to understand, and public services that don’t depend on who you know.
It’s easy to take pictures of a 1km tower, but not of a fair zoning policy. One person lives on Instagram, and the other person lives in the city records office. The danger is that the visible dream will take up all of the emotional and financial energy of a whole decade, leaving the invisible foundations uneven.
Between hope and responsibility
So how do regular Saudis deal with the conflict between their big dreams and the reality of everyday life? Mental triage is one quiet way to do this. People learn to hold two thoughts at once: they are proud of how brave their country has become, and they keep a private spreadsheet in their heads of things that still don’t add up. They enjoy being able to go to concerts, travel more easily, or start new businesses, but they also keep a close eye on rent, gas, and food.
You can see a similar split screen on social media. People like pictures of towers, but they save threads about jobs and salaries. Both things are true at the same time.
There is also a new kind of fear in the air. Younger Saudis know more about media than any other generation. They’ve seen megaproject promises fall apart in other countries, like ghost towns in China and stadiums that aren’t finished after World Cups. So they ask more pointed questions, like what will happen if the tourism goals aren’t met? What if oil prices go down and investors get nervous? Who takes the hit? State funds, private developers, or citizens who quietly cut back?
People in and out of the country often make the mistake of thinking that Saudis are either crazy fans or angry critics. Most people live in the messy middle, trying to ride the wave without getting pulled under.
- A young accountant in Jeddah told me, “Skylines don’t pay for school.” “I’m proud that we can build like this.” But ask me again when my kids are older. Then we’ll see what it really changed.
- Don’t just look at the buildings; look at the budgets too.
- Not just during official interviews, but also when people aren’t on camera.
- Not just Jeddah and Riyadh, but also how smaller cities change over time.
- After five or ten years, compare what was promised with what was actually done.
- Keep in mind that big projects often last longer than the people who started them.
What the 1km dream really shows
In the end, the story of Saudi Arabia’s record-breaking tower is less about the glass and steel and more about what the country chooses to show and what it doesn’t. A skyscraper that big is like a loudhailer saying, “Look at us, we’re changing, we’re powerful, and we’re here.” It makes the news, fills YouTube thumbnails, and feeds the world’s need for drama.
But as the tower gets taller, the question at home gets louder: who is carrying the weight of this dream? People working on scaffolding in the sun. Families are going over their budgets again. A generation that bets that today’s big gestures will turn into real chances tomorrow, not just postcards.
Saudi Arabia is at a point where pride and vision are hard to tell apart. The 1km line in the sky is a promise and a test at the same time. If the dream becomes a real, shared prosperity, future citizens may see a sign of a change when they look up.
If not, it might be remembered as a monument to a time when screens and skylines were more important than streets and lives. The answer won’t be written in the clouds; it’ll be in how people act, talk, spend, work, and hope when the cameras aren’t on.
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Saudi’s 1km tower as vanity symbol | The project caps a global race for the tallest building, driven as much by prestige as by urban need. | Helps readers decode the psychological and political motives behind megaprojects they see in the news. |
| Who really funds the dream | State-linked wealth, oil revenues and concentrated investment flows shape what gets built — and what doesn’t. | Offers a lens to question where public wealth goes and what trade-offs are being made. |
| Impact on everyday life | Citizens juggle pride with worries about cost of living, services and long-term economic risk. | Connects a distant skyline story to the concrete realities people face in their own cities. |
FAQ:
Is the Saudi tower that is 1 km tall really being built right now?
There have been delays and restarts in the work on the Jeddah Tower over the years, but the goal of building a record-breaking structure is still very much alive and linked to the larger Vision 2030 plan.
Who is putting money into the Jeddah Tower project?
Officially, private developers and investors pay for it, but important people have strong ties to state-backed funds like the Public Investment Fund, which gets its money from oil revenues and national wealth.
Why does Saudi Arabia want to build the tallest building in the world?
The tower is meant to show that the kingdom is ambitious, modern, and important to the world. It will help the kingdom become a tourist and investment hub, not just an oil producer.
What does this mean for regular Saudi people?
People may get new jobs and chances because of megaprojects, but they also have to deal with questions about how public money is spent, rising land prices, and whether basic services are keeping up.
Could the tower cost a lot of money in the future?
If the expected flows of tourists and investments don’t come through, the costs of keeping and justifying such a huge asset could put a strain on public finances, private investors, and, indirectly, citizens through less spending choices.
