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Smart City Strategy: Songdo International Business District (South Korea)

PrintSongdo International Business District (IBD) is a $35 billon dollar venture of a new smart city, located in South Korea. It was built from scratch on 1,500 acres (610 ha) of reclaimed land along Incheon’s waterfront in South Korea, 65km from the capital, Seoul. Songdo IBD aspires to become a business hub in Northeast Asia. The main developers are Gale International, Posco and Morgan Stanley Real Estate. The city is masterplanned according to LEED-ND principles (a globally accredited rating system for green neighborhoods) that call for a synergistic mix of uses. Open spaces account for 40% of the area and walking is encouraged. By its completion the district will contain 80,000 apartments, 50,000,000 square feet (4,600,000 m2) of office space and 10,000,000 square feet (930,000 m2) of retail space. In this newly-built city, CISCO showcases their Smart+Connected Communities program. The technology vendor employed state-of-the-art technology in buildings, forging a network that connects all the components of the city, including residences, offices and schools. The residents are able to control the functions of their homes remotely and everyone is able to interact through video from anywhere through CISCO’ s Telepresence System. The first phase of Songdo opened in August 2009. However, the construction of the city has been progressing slower than anticipated ever since. According to Shwayri (2013), for now Songdo is more of a wealthy suburb of Incheon city, mostly populated by locals.

17b_SongdoAerialFigure: Aerial view of Songdo (source)

 

Access Songdo IBD’ s website here.

Suggested readings about Songdo IBD:
1. IsSongdo, 2010. Songdo City – Cisco Connected City. Available here.
2. Medimorec, N., 2014. Songdo, revisited! Available here.
3. Shwayri, S. T., 2013. A Model Korean Ubiquitous Eco-City? The Politics of Making Songdo. Journal of Urban Technology, 20, 39-55. Available here.