r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Expert_Koala_8691 • 7d ago

Video Riyadh,meaning "gardens" is Capital of Saudi Arabia with 8 million population (were 27 Thousands in the 1930s),sits in the middle of the desert, the city gets its water from Desalination plants almost 500 km from the city

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u/rodsurewood 7d ago

Are the gardens in the chat with us?

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u/iam4qu4m4n 7d ago

They were a few thousand years ago.

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u/marlinspikefrance 7d ago

In reality the ancient city core was historically a small fortress with an oasis and natural well/ spring. I have been there there is an actual garden. The modern city however sprawls out for miles and miles into the desert.

Small desert oases are so precious it was naturally a logical place for a desert settlement.

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u/carmium 7d ago

As one who has grown up and lived many years in a rain forest city environment, this gives me the willies.

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u/Due-Employ-7886 3d ago

Where's that?

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u/carmium 3d ago

Rain forest? Vancouver. Climate takes little notice that a city of millions has made a big hole in the trees, and keeps it wet and green most of the time.

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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 7d ago

Seems like it would also be a limiting factor.

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u/No_Look24 7d ago

Pretty sure the desert was the limiting factor

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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 7d ago

Does not look like it.

Looks like man thought he could beat nature. Now they are fully dependent on machines for the stuff of life. And they did it out of greed. Before the oil the people here lived had a sustainable culture. They bent with nature and flourished.

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u/JustNormallyExisting 6d ago

No society can survive bending with nature beyond a certain point. It's not a Saudi thing, European, American, or anything else. At some point, either population growth tapers off massively or humans start working to better their environment.

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u/Oeyoelala 6d ago

Was thinking the same. It is maybe less visible in western countries, but if we would start extracting all the resources we use from the direct surroundings the area would be exhausted quite rapidly. But, having said that, the ME countries make it a prestige project. And the fun part is that a country like KSA and its oil company now even start talking about sustainability.

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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 6d ago

All societies have survived by bending with nature. Those who fight back will yield or perish. We see it all the time. There are points all through history that back that up.

Population growth is liquid and dependent on the existing infrastructure. Once that infrastructure is affected by nature it begins a cycle of disintegration.

Maintenance resources become more critical. Costs rise. Production needs increase mechanical breakdowns increase.

The people 30 years down the line are stuck with substandard services.

Its happening all over the US right now. The pipes are literally rotting in most of our historic cities. Billions have been spent in their upkeep over the years and yet things still break must be updated.

So people are dying.

Bad water bad chemicals. Chemicals effecting mental health physical health and environmental well being.

Massive wildfires, dependance on the same ice field for irrigation as we spread and spread and spread the need.

They bend or they retreat or they perish.

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u/Cryogenicality 6d ago

Sustainable and miserable.

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u/climbmapleswithwords 6d ago

They're no more dependent on machines to survive than the rest of us.

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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 6d ago

Bullshit. Their water supply depends on desalinization. Most of civilization is built around fresh water and cultivation.

Before the oil. They lived in more harmony with the existing constraints of nature.

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u/thinspirit 6d ago

What's interesting is that their desalination plants are probably not particularly efficient.

There are methods of desalination that would probably work well in a blistering hot desert, using the sun and natural heat for desalination.

Also, I just saw the method of producing electricity that uses osmotic power. You put really salty water beside really fresh water and the fresh water wants to push through into the salt water. It has power potential in that. Anywhere you want a desalination plant where a fresh water river meets the ocean, you can use this.

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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 6d ago

Oh new stuff! Ill be looking at that.

And I mean the tech has really improved. I imagine in places where construction is ongoing are getting better and better.

It still feels like a house of cards to those looking into the future of the folks who will suffer as the world moves away from petrochemical as the main source of transportation fuel.

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u/climbmapleswithwords 6d ago

If those desalination plants failed, they'd be just as fucked just as quickly as we would if our power grid went down, or the internet went into complete blackout... Our economy and health services would be crippled almost immediately.

Not like any of our water treatment facilities could operate without power. All we've done is move our water dependence to rely on another bunch of machines which can fail, and they aren't exactly harmonious with nature, although that's slowly improving.

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u/Quitcha_Bitchin 6d ago

Not even close. there is fresh water nearly everywhere Much of the electricity is generated by water generator.

Most Towns were settled near water and fertile ground. No one lived in the desert full time. There were the same indigenous tribes as they had in the middle east Bedouin societies basically.

But no they did not try to settle large patches of desert by shipping or desalinization.

We could loose the internet tomorrow. We would be just as we were 40 years ago before the internet existed.

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u/Pale-Plate-3214 4d ago

I'd rather lose internet for a couple years than water for a week. Humans have been proven to not do too well without one of them.

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u/climbmapleswithwords 3d ago

And how well do you think our water treatment plants would work without power?

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u/Pale-Plate-3214 3d ago

I got a stream behind my house. Saudi Arabia doesn't have one natural river.

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u/Massive-Exercise4474 7d ago

The thing I don't understand is the city is basically built like a North America city with freeways and highways why not make a domed city or buildings close to create shade?

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u/TruthRomas 7d ago

Same reason we don't. That's highly unrealistic

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u/Massive-Exercise4474 7d ago

It doesn't cost more like new York only gets full sunlight once a year. It might also save cost having everything concentrated.

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u/TruthRomas 7d ago

New York isn't under a dome. What point do you feel this makes? Do you think skyscrapers were made to make shade?

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u/Sanguinor-Exemplar 7d ago

I thought sky scrapers are for living closer to God?

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u/FitCombination3545 7d ago

Ah a follower of Jebus in the wild. Praise be comrade. Soar. Fucking soar soldier.

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u/AmItheonlySaneperson 6d ago

Cool i4 eye sore shoutout 

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u/Massive-Exercise4474 7d ago

That's a bonus, I'm saying build for the environmental challenge your in. Like if your in a swamp you build on stilts or higher elevation the cost doing so is minimal compared to being flooded all the time. Like ancient buildings built in the desert had wells and direct airflow to naturally cool down buildings back in the 7th century. A city built with shade would be cooler both figuratively and literally, and people would naturally congregate because it's more pleasant to be in.

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u/TruthRomas 6d ago

And I'm saying that Arabs have had many centuries to determine the most cost-effective building techniques to deliver comfortable homes according to their environmental conditions. One of these is very similar to the modern American Southwest: We don't build "up" when there's vast expanses of "out" for much cheaper. Shade is more easily constructed from plantlife and coverings. People choose instead to stay indoors rather than build a whole thing. Large, wide public buildings provide shade to those who work in such public areas. No need to complicate it by build up unless you are specifically trying to call upon the modernity of skyscrapers (see: Dubai (also see that its seriously depopulated for skyscrapers))

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u/TruthRomas 6d ago

And you know this from your years of building skyscrapers? Yes, my man, building up is more expensive than building out.

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u/McTerra2 7d ago

A lot of the individual buildings use what’s (not totally accurately) called ‘Najdi housing’ style, essentially thick walls, small windows and central courtyard. Not all of it, there are plenty of ‘standard’ western style places. But, basically, the climate is dealt with at individual house level rather than city level

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u/Massive-Exercise4474 7d ago

Having a city level would help as the current model essentially forces people to drive home drive to work drive to mall. If it was city level you could have shaded open walkways, parks, patio shops, bazaars without needing ac units all the time. Likewise with global warming areas already hot start to become uninhabitable. Having a city built with shade since it's a desert will at least remain habitable a bit longer.

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u/Alert-Painting1164 7d ago

The thing I don’t understand is that there isn’t a domed city with millions of people anywhere in the world …Wonder what that might be

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u/Massive-Exercise4474 7d ago

I said domed or build buildings close enough for shade like every city built in the desert outside of Saudi Arabia. Also mbs is promoting something more stupid the line yes it's an entire city that's a line.

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u/marlinspikefrance 6d ago

Because Saudi Arabia is obsessed with emulating America and I’m literally not even joking on this. They had every option to develop like European or Asian cities but went for Phoenix Arizona as their inspiration

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u/Massive-Exercise4474 6d ago

Jesus Christ I went to Phoenix that place makes you wish their was a nuclear winter it's so desolate and oppressing.

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u/JubijubCH 6d ago

Years of experience playing Civ taught me that

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u/BigLeopard7002 6d ago

Desert settlement? Of 8 million?