I once spent four days in the Kingdom. Notable observations from that regrettable gambit:

1. Literally nobody works (except the slaves).

2. They don't let Westerners (maybe all foreigners...don't know) wander the streets of Riyadh alone. Not sure if this is to protect them or us. Probably both.

3. A boring-ass country with no culture or entertainment to speak of is not made less boring by the lack of alcohol, nor by the fact that Saudi Airlines blurs out women's legs in the in-flight movies.

4. 113º Heat SUCKS and I wouldn't want to take a 5 minute walk from anywhere to anywhere, no matter how conveniently located my local halal butchery is.

5. After I gave my talk to the conference I was attending, a young medical student approached me to say how happy he was to meet a real American scientist. We chatted for a minute or two, and I gave him my card. Not 30 minutes later he sent me a long email about how hard it is there, and that he had expressed a disbelief in God, for which he was punished with beatings from the religious police. It felt weirdly like a trap, so I just responded with something anodyne. But true or not true, the email is problematic either way.

6. When I tried to get my visa, I naturally visited the embassy's website, and it's one of those sites where Chrome throws up a big red screen saying GO BACK TO SAFETY YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER!!!

I could go on, but my point is that I think that the Kingdom and His Highness have some more pressing problems than urban planning if they want to attract foreign investment that doesn't involve resource extraction.