The Old World, otherwise known as Europe, is getting a brand-new city. Not a new arrondissement on the edge of Paris, or a new neighborhood in the suburbs of Milan—but an entire city, built from scratch on the jagged edge of a reservoir, some 2.5 hours southwest of Madrid.
Elysium City, as it is called, is billed as Europe’s first circular city to be built from the ground up, following a masterplan by global architecture firm Gensler. It will span 2,900 acres (about 4.5 square miles) and is expected to be completed in 20 years, with the first phase opening in about 5. The project received construction permits earlier this year and is expected to break ground any day now. It will cost just shy of $20 billion.
Before we go any further, you won’t be blamed for drawing parallels between Elysium and Neom, Saudi Arabia’s line-shaped aberration that is slowly taking shape deep in a desert bordering the Red Sea. Both cities are being planned on a patch of land that was previously untouched (though in Spain, the landscape is a little more forgiving). Both are described as sustainable havens with solar farms, a rail network, and electric vehicles. And weirdly, despite having nothing to do with Greece, both names share ancient Greek roots (Elysium means “paradise”; Neom from the Greek prefix, neo, and an Arabic abbreviation for “future,”essentially means “new future”).
Of course, Neom has been steeped in criticism and controversy from day one, while Elysium hasn’t yet been skewered by international media. But before the first road has even been laid, Elysium City may have already succeeded where Neom has failed: It promises to work with nature, not against it.
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