Linear megastructures. An eccentric pursuit in tackling urban sustainability challenges

Linear megastructures, apart from megastructures in general, are one of several types of concepts in context of linear urban development. The term refers to various compact architectural, infrastructural and transportation plans in linear form. With their daunting massive scale these concepts are often attributed to utopian attempts of pursuing an ideal city and therefore doomed to remain unrealized. This paper examines several models created throughout the course of history in terms of their emergence motivation, socio-economic circumstances and relation to urban sustainability. Through the analysis, it is argued that linear megastructures are often unjustly rejected without acknowledgement of their underlying beneficial features in terms of mitigating challenges to sustainable urban development.