In Saudi Arabia, they have arrived at a third way in the battle of the sexes: rather than carry on fighting about who is allowed economic agency and a driving licence and whatnot, how about we just agree to differ? Women can live in one town (in the urban centre of Hofuf), men can live in all the others. Women can pursue their dreams of financial independence and intellectual fulfilment, so long as they are prepared only to see men in the holidays. It is not considered to be a move forward in women's liberation, not unless you think apartheid was a good system for black people because they got their own swimming pools.

While it doesn't seem to have been devised with female empowerment in mind, that doesn't mean Ladytown won't boost women in unintended ways. Saudi Arabian women are often very highly educated (the country also has the world's largest women-only university) but then barred from the jobs market – and when you educate people, refuse to let them work and then suddenly unleash them, en masse, into economic productivity, that's almost an open invitation to them to be better than you.

So my first prediction is that Hofuf will be exceedingly productive, not least because, as an industrial town with no men in it, it will presumably contain none of those mini-impediments to productivity known as "children". Given a couple of years, it will look something like South Korea compared with North – sleeker, shinier, way further into the 21st century. And not because women are more houseproud; just because they will most probably be richer.

Does anybody remember in the 90s, when the Slug and Lettuce pub chain deliberately fancied itself up to appeal to the lady drinker? And wham, two seconds later, that's where all the men wanted to drink as well, so that all pubs had to become more like Slugs and Lettuces just to survive? That's how I see Hofuf playing out: a giant Slug and Lettuce, minus the booze and the Doritos, men beating down the door to get in, even while they pretend to prefer their own local(e).