I was trained to think linearly as an engineer and businessman in my early days. Later I had to make a major adjustment to the more chaotic world of entrepreneurialism and pioneering activity. This non-linear attitude was reinforced by commuting in chaotic cities such as London. Any faith I once had in straight lines were killed by regular grid locks in New York and the lack of any soul in new towns such as Livingston New Town and Milton Keynes. So my belief in linear thinking is now dead. After all, nature doesn’t operate in straight lines. It’s much more chaotic than that.
So it was a bit of a surprise to see the latest new city to be announced, NEOM. They are promoting THE LINE. A multi-million city built on a 170 km straight line. A series of small communities with open space and gardens mixed with food production, connected by ultra-high-speed mass transit, the SPINE. Zero cars, zero streets and zero carbon emissions. Walk anywhere-everything is 5 minutes away, live a simplified life. People come first. Sounds like utopia, but interesting to see what we can learn from this radical new concept. We shall see in ten to fifteen years’ time whether the concept works. Will it become yet another failed attempt by mankind to impose its obsession with straight lines?
What can we learn for Scotland from this initiative, if anything? It’s pretty obvious that we are not going to demolish our existing cities and build a NEOM 100 mile line. Unaffordable, and impractical.
However, we like the idea of thinking of Scotland as having SPINES linking small towns and small cities, connected by superfast mass transit. Perhaps SPINES from Stranraer to Ayr to Glasgow to Stirling to Perth to Inverness and Thurso and from Berwick to Duns to Falkirk to St. Andrews, Dundee and Aberdeen. Creating small new towns along the spines rather than continuing to invest in bigger, chaotic cities.
We are not transport infrastructure experts, but try this idea in the spirit of future thinking. Follow the attitude of Adam Grant’s new book, Think Again. Forget the long-term future of road building. Convert existing roads to house fast, mass transit systems to create the two to three SPINES that could interconnect Scotland with a few squiggly lines. Imagine pragmatically broadening the carriageway from Glasgow to Inverness and then converting the carriageway into a mass transit system, eliminating most cars for the future!
We hope someone somewhere in Scotland is as visionary with their thinking as the NEOM leaders and architects are. Maybe not a return to pure linear thinking, but creating a few new spines that could contribute to our vision of Scotland. This attitude is better than continuing to invest in a fragmented, small country connected by inefficient, old transport systems and expanded chaotic cities. This, combined with small scale, electronic aircraft to connect hop to the islands and a long overdue superfast broadband network could complete the thinking. Scotland 2070. A VIRTUAL MID-SIZED WORLD CITY interconnected by a few SQUIGGLY SPINES.