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Fabrication of space: The design of everyday life in South Korean Songdo

Author

Listed:
  • Dominik Bartmanski

    (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany)

  • Seonju Kim

    (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)

  • Martina Löw

    (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)

  • Timothy Pape

    (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)

  • Jörg Stollmann

    (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

Constructed from scratch on land reclaimed from the sea, Songdo was planned to embody new ‘smart city’ life. In reality, it has come to exemplify enclave urbanism that commodifies securitised living for upwardly mobile middle classes. While the political economy of this urban project is by now well studied, the sociological ethnography of the resultant space and its experiential correlates remains less developed and imperfectly contextualised. One needs to connect the dots of power and space. The present paper aims to do that and thematises the ‘design of everyday life’ which rests on (1) the intensification of privatised digital surveillance of mass housing compounds which in turn occasions (2) the remaking of spatial markers and symbolic boundaries between private/public, inclusive/exclusive, inside/outside. As such it is a combination of two different registers of visibility that gets jointly orchestrated by the public–private partnership of Korean state and corporate actors. In order to recognise these regimes as strategic visions of controlled social life we extend James Scott’s notion of ‘seeing like a state’ to include the corresponding regime that we call ‘seeing like a corporation’. This allows us to show that they are mutually elaborative in Songdo through a hybridised fabrication of its lived environment, particularly in the case of one branded housing typology located in the city’s centre called International Business District. This elucidates not only the local entrepreneurial urbanism that gave rise to the controlled environment of Songdo but also more general logics of the ‘compressed modernisation’ in the region which sets a global mode for production of space and re-territorialisation of power.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominik Bartmanski & Seonju Kim & Martina Löw & Timothy Pape & Jörg Stollmann, 2023. "Fabrication of space: The design of everyday life in South Korean Songdo," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(4), pages 673-695, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:60:y:2023:i:4:p:673-695
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980221115051
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rob Kitchin, 2015. "Making sense of smart cities: addressing present shortcomings," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(1), pages 131-136.
    2. 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.
    3. HaeRan Shin & Se Hoon Park & Jung Won Sonn, 2015. "The emergence of a multiscalar growth regime and scalar tension: the politics of urban development in Songdo New City, South Korea," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(6), pages 1618-1638, December.
    4. Michael R. Glass, 2018. "Seeing like a city through the Singapore City Gallery," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 236-256, March.
    5. Paolo Cardullo & Rob Kitchin, 2019. "Smart urbanism and smart citizenship: The neoliberal logic of ‘citizen-focused’ smart cities in Europe," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(5), pages 813-830, August.
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    Cited by:

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