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The Ubiquitous-Eco-City of Songdo: An Urban Systems Perspective on South Korea's Green City Approach

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  • Paul D. Mullins

    (The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, UK)

Abstract

Since the 1980s, within the broader context of studies on smart cities, there has been a growing body of academic research on networked cities and “computable cities” by authors including Manuel Castells (Castells, 1989; Castells & Cardoso, 2005), William Mitchell (1995), Michael Batty (2005, 2013), and Rob Kitchin (2011). Over the last decade, governments in Asia have displayed an appetite and commitment to construct large scale city developments from scratch—one of the most infamous being the smart entrepreneurial city of Songdo, South Korea. Using Songdo as a case study, this paper will examine, from an urban systems perspective, some of the challenges of using a green-city model led by networked technology. More specifically, this study intends to add to the growing body of smart city literature by using an external global event—the global financial crisis in 2008—to reveal what is missing from the smart city narrative in Songdo. The paper will use the definition of an urban system and internal subsystems by Bertuglia et al. (1987) and Bertuglia, Clarke and Wilson (1994) to reveal the sensitivity and resilience of a predetermined smart city narrative. For instance, what happens if the vision moves from the originally intended international-orientated population towards remarketing the city to attract a domestic middle-class population. The lens of the financial crisis in 2008 revealed that the inherent inflexibility of a closed-system approach in Songdo was not sufficiently resilient to external shocks. The shift towards a domestic middle-class population revealed the inequality in accessing the city services in a system designed with formalized and rigid inputs and outputs. By focusing predominantly on technology, the social dimensions of the city were not part of Songdo’s smart city vocabulary. Therefore, in adopting a technologically deterministic approach (Mullins & Shwayri, 2016) to achieving efficiency and combating environmental issues, Songdo’s green city model was found insufficient in its ability to cope with the complexity and dissonance that occurs in relation to “glocal” challenges facing cities today.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul D. Mullins, 2017. "The Ubiquitous-Eco-City of Songdo: An Urban Systems Perspective on South Korea's Green City Approach," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(2), pages 4-12.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v2:y:2017:i:2:p:4-12
    DOI: 10.17645/up.v2i2.933
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Vito Albino & Umberto Berardi & Rosa Maria Dangelico, 2015. "Smart Cities: Definitions, Dimensions, Performance, and Initiatives," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 3-21, January.
    2. Paul D. Mullins & Sofia T. Shwayri, 2016. "Green Cities and “IT839”: A New Paradigm for Economic Growth in South Korea," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 47-64, April.
    3. Jung In Kim, 2014. "Making cities global: the new city development of Songdo, Yujiapu and Lingang," Planning Perspectives, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 329-356, July.
    4. Sofia T. Shwayri, 2013. "A Model Korean Ubiquitous Eco-City? The Politics of Making Songdo," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 39-55, January.
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