
Songdo, South Korea: City of the Future? - bane
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/songdo-south-korea-the-city-of-the-future/380849/?single_page=true
======
omegaworks
>There are even small plots of land for urban farming, many of which were
given to Songdo's former fishermen as reparation for the destruction of their
fisheries.

I really wish this was less of a puff-piece for the "City of the Future"
Songdo (TM) and looked more into how land was acquired, who owns the rights to
land and property, who pays for things, how much does it cost to live there
now, etc. It has a skeptical tone but it fails to address any of the real
questions people might have about living there or its history.

If it's so empty, why hasn't it been filled up by people looking for low-cost
housing? (If the supply is high, <fill in armchair economics here>)

There are few cities with this level of infrastructure planning springing up
in the west as far as I know. Lots of people are pointing to empty cities in
NK, China, and the UAE but lack of coverage there can be explained by their
hostility to free journalism. Are SK voices just as restricted?

~~~
bane
Something Korea's national government appears to be in the process of doing is
trying to break apart the centralization on Seoul and spread economic activity
more evenly around the country. For example: South Korea is in the process of
establishing a new planned capital like Washington D.C. or Canberra. The move
has been compared to the U.S. capital moving from New York City and
Philadelphia to D.C.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejong_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejong_City)

There's all kinds of secondary reasons for this. Seoul has an astonishingly
high population density for a developed country and controls such a vast
percentage of the economy that municipal decisions basically act as national
policy. Satellite cities all basically follow whatever Seoul is doing and
other than Pusan, there's strikingly little major cultural of social
development. The rest of Korea is basically farms, minor industrial centers
and museums/monuments.

Other smaller issues are things like the problems with depopulation of the
rural areas: for example, farmers regularly import wives from nearby
countries, leading to a spate of new laws regulating this practice.

So development efforts like Songdo and Sejong are basically intended to spread
the population centers around a bit, attract foreign investment and continue
the momentum South Korea currently enjoys in becoming a regional and global
player.

With Songdo in particular, the attraction is specific, it's the virtual
geographic center of the North East Asian regional economy:

Shenzhen, Taipei and Tokyo are all around 3 hour flights to Songdo. This makes
business meetings in or from Songdo a (long but doable) single day affair,
while doing the same in Seoul adds enough hours* that it turns them into 2 day
events.

 _A trip from Incheon International to central Seoul is easily a 2 hour one-
way trip in traffic. Doing the math, 6 hours in the air, 4-5 hours driving, 4
hours in security and waiting to take off (2 hours each way) and you 're
looking at a very long day._

So why not just do this in Incheon? Incheon is like Seoul, a densely packed,
established city mostly existing as a port city for handling imports and
exports of goods. It's not the greatest place to do business deals in a nice
setting. It's hard to clear out enough space to make work and btw, the road to
Incheon passes through Songdo. This arrangement basically makes Songdo the
nice showroom for Korea for doing business while the ugly warehouse in back is
reserved for the chaos of execution.

Cost to live in Songdo isn't bad. In fact, most of Korea outside of Seoul is
fairly reasonable.

[http://www.realestatesongdo.com/](http://www.realestatesongdo.com/)

For example, A 145m^2 (about 1500 sq ft) 3 bedroom apartment is running about
550million Won or about half a million U.S. Dollars. A similar sized apartment
rents there for ~$2400/mo.

By comparison, a similar sized apartment in Namdaemun (an area in Seoul) runs
around $1.2million.

Why aren't people moving there? Probably because it's inconvenient. People get
really invested in the places they live, and the Seoul metropolitan area is
huge. There's nicer places to live for a similar cost in the Seoul Capital
Area that are better established and offer more benefits for the average non-
international jet-setter.

More importantly, Songdo is part of the Incheon Free Economic Zone, which
offers various tax incentives to qualifying residents and businesses,
incentives which the average person wouldn't be able to take advantage of. The
article focuses too much on Koreans living there. Songdo is really intended as
a place for foreigners doing business in South Korea to comfortably live and
for South Koreans engaged in International Business to interface with them, a
kind of Korean Dubai. For example, highlights are a Golf Course (expensive as
sin for Koreans), an International School district and an Opera House.

More reading here

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incheon_Free_Economic_Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incheon_Free_Economic_Zone)

this one in particular is basically a brochure outlining most of what I've
provided above and providing a few other interesting points, particularly
about the benefits of the Free Economic Zone that Songdo is within.

[http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity...](http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan018745.pdf)

~~~
yongjik
I think some clarification is necessary:

If South Korean government were really serious about addressing the problem of
over-centralization of Korea (hint: the present administration isn't), they
wouldn't have built yet another new city reachable by Seoul's _subway system_.

In contrast, the construction of Sejong city (pioneered by the late president
Roh Moo-Hyun) was fraught with legal/political objections from conservatives,
who were worried that such a move would undermine their traditional position
of power (and potentially do something to finally stabilize the housing market
of Seoul, though that's rather far-fetched). The struggle culminated in our
own Constitutional Court declaring the original Sejong project (which wanted
to make it the new capital of governance) as unconstitutional, on the grounds
that it would be against Gyeongguk Daejeon, the "constitution" (or close
equivalent) of our dead Joseon dynasty (1392-1910).

(Yep, these guys were desparate, and had the backing of half South Koreans, so
"being logical" wasn't a high priority. So went the chance of building a
balanced nation...)

Needless to say, none of these guys raised any objection in building Songdo:
unlike Sejong, Songdo poses no danger to any established political power, and
it might even serve as a convenient way to funnel tons of money into
construction companies.

~~~
bane
If I recall correctly, after the courts struck down the proposed move of the
capital, people wanted the development to continue anyway, but have the city
be refocused as Science and Tech city (being relatively close to Daejeon and
KAIST)?

The last that I had read, under President Lee, the city was renamed some kind
of generic "special administrative district" instead and most of the
government offices started moving anyways? So it's basically going to end up
being the capital, just not called it until the GNP and the opposition parties
can get it together long enough to pass a constitutional reform.

> If South Korean government were really serious about addressing the problem
> of over-centralization of Korea (hint: the present administration isn't),
> they wouldn't have built yet another new city reachable by Seoul's subway
> system.

I have an notion that someday most of the country will be on Seoul's Subway
system, you can already to Seoul from Sinchang after all. That's half-way to
Daejeon! ;)

------
prawn
I'd like to see a smart city with grand infrastructure (subways designed ahead
of time, the garbage system outlined in this article, etc) but designed on a
human scale.

That is, not bulked out by endless roads and parking allowances. There are
many charming and walkable cities around the world but so often these
"designed" cities are created on the scale of cars and end up feeling so
wrong.

If you need service roads and parking, hide them underground perhaps.

Images of Houston are often used to demonstrate the sprawl you get from giving
way to the convenience of cars and parking:
[http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/files/2012/06/Houston...](http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/files/2012/06/Houston-
parking1.jpg)

~~~
agersant
I've never been there but I heard in Houston the human-scale areas are
actually underground. It's called the Houston Tunnel System.

Picture:
[http://www.downtownhouston.org/site_media/uploads/photos/201...](http://www.downtownhouston.org/site_media/uploads/photos/2010-02-17/Payne_396668_Pennzoil_tunnel_rp_486x360.jpg)

~~~
prawn
I guess that has advantages protecting against the elements, but then I wonder
if you lose a lot of the charm of open air streets? Al fresco dining (areas
near İstiklâl Caddesi in Istanbul), getting lost in windy residential alleys
(Kotor in Montenegro), narrow Parisian streets, the lost hutongs in Beijing,
etc.

Toronto has PATH - 29km of underground pedestrian tunnels:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(Toronto)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_\(Toronto\))

I do think working vertically is a solution, whichever way it's approached.
Just needs to be a little more organised than areas with urban monorails like
Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur where your walking is constantly interrupted with
stairs to cross streets, or vistas are blocked by raised train lines.

------
Dwolb
Songdo has been plagued by poor planning from the start. The gov't contracted
Gale International, a company with no previous international experience, to
manage the project and Posco, a Korean company whose work was not considered
in the top 3 best lf Korean contractors at the time.

Consider, an American company from Boston is put in charge to manage, fund,
and (formerly) profit from building a world class city with questionable
demand over the course of 15 years (financial crisis anyone?) while partnering
with a mediocre contractor in the mud flats of Korea (ruining natural bird
habitats along the way).

Poor logic and planning has contributed to the low population and overall eery
feeling of the city.

------
guard-of-terra
Photos look a bit like Minsk by the river northwards from centre, the
combination of high rises, park and river.

Of course more modern and with even higher buildings.

It's a nice look but not very comfortable for living. Taking a walk across the
street might take fifteen minutes.

~~~
mo1ok
I like the idea, but damn do I hate the soviet-style planned city. My utopia
is the dense, winding cowpaths of Florence or Boston.

------
wyager
New York City has the highest percentage of green space of any city in the US?
That has to be a misleading metric, including less inhabited areas way out of
the city proper. If you're in Manhattan, the only green spaces are little
square parks, tiny alley parks accessible only to people with children
(lame!), and central park. The city does not feel "green" at all.

If you go to DC, on the other hand, all sidewalks are thoroughly planted with
trees and shrubs and such, and there are many buildings with big lawns and
gardens. DC feels much greener than NYC.

~~~
Spooky23
NYC != Manhattan. 1.6 million of 8.3 million New Yorkers live on Manhattan.

Traditionally good neighborhoods have lots of parks.

DC is very similar IMO. The through streetscapes were intended to be
beautiful, which anyone who has seen Queens boulevard can tell you is not true
of NYC. But at the neighborhood level, it's pretty similar.

~~~
wyager
>NYC != Manhattan.

Right, but even if you go to the outer boroughs there is still almost no green
space. I would like to see a map of where they are polling from.

~~~
SapphireSun
NYC has absolutely massive cemeteries. I would be that they are counted in the
green space though they don't have the kind of attractions that people
typically associate with parks as they are densely packed.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/New+York,+NY/@40.6853394,-...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/New+York,+NY/@40.6853394,-73.8844572,5112m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x89c24fa5d33f083b:0xc80b8f06e177fe62)
(This is Queens)

In Boston, there is at least one cemetery that is filled with wildlife, trees,
and walkable monuments, so there are different ways to do it.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Boston,+MA/@42.3709798,-71...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Boston,+MA/@42.3709798,-71.144253,1003m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x89e3652d0d3d311b:0x787cbf240162e8a0)

~~~
wyager
>NYC has absolutely massive cemeteries.

That's true. I forgot to account for them because they're not really open
access. They're also too full of gravestones to have activities in.

------
yzzxy
I almost wish all cities were built like this, all at once and never
incremented (though I'm sure construction will continue after the city is
"done").

It would be great to see different trends in design and architecture splayed
out across a list of cities.

~~~
smacktoward
I dunno, I feel the opposite. Planned communities always feel soulless to me,
artificial. I like cities that have grown in fits and starts, in ways their
planners didn't anticipate or wouldn't have approved of. It's a reminder that
cities are ultimately about the people who live in them more than any one
person's grand design.

~~~
bluthru
What's an example of a city that wasn't planned?

I associate unplanned areas with developer-dictated sprawl.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I really don't think there's any place on earth that's not planned, to be
quite honest. I think we're using the wrong word here.

If you look at a city like Paris for example, Haussmann's plan, in my opinion
at least, has created an absolutely stunning and unique city. But within it,
there's been a lot of room for organic development.

But if you look at a city like Detroit, you get the developer-dictated sprawl
you mentioned. But that, too, is planned. If you create building permits for
block after block after block of single-family detached home, you get
detroit's urban sprawl where you'll figuratively die of hunger in the
unfortunate case your car is out of fuel and you need to walk to the nearest
mall haha.

Anyway, I think in general European cities have gotten it right quite often.
Lots of open spaces, green spaces, make cities walkable, good public
transportation, mix housing with light commercial areas, keep heavy industry
outside of the city, mix housing catering to various socioeconomic classes,
create a good amount of density so you don't get sprawl, but so you don't get
overcrowding either, and focus (public) transport on connecting residential
and office/commercial areas. You usually get a great quality of life, little
polution, social cohesion, affordability, little social tension, and create an
impression that it's unplanned and organic (i.e. don't use graph paper to
model a city)

~~~
smacktoward
I agree, "planned" may not have been the right word for me to use, since most
cities have had at least some degree of planning in their development.

I reached for that word because (in the modern-day US, anyway), a "planned
community" is a very specific thing: a giant, car-centric tract of residential
housing, with the developers making a nod towards the needs of real
communities for things like grocery and other retail shops by plunking a
shopping or strip mall in the middle. It's the Levittown
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York))
model, but with McMansions instead of the small Cape Cods and ranch houses
([http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown/building.html](http://tigger.uic.edu/~pbhales/Levittown/building.html))
of the original post-WWII building era.

The sentiment I was trying to express was that the homogeneity of building
everything at once made Songdo sound more like that than it did a city like,
say, New York, which (while there have been master plans guiding development
there too) can still feel diverse and lived-in.

------
notastartup
The previous administration in South Korea had envisioned mega construction
projects aimed largely at making it look good during the time of global
economic downtrend. Four river projects is another big disaster like Songdo.

Building a city on top of sand is trouble to begin with, take a look at
Dubai's projects. Spending billions on a city where nobody will come reminds
me largely of the ghost cities in China.

I just have a feeling this is a giant financial disaster for the Korean
government, the only people who benefit from this are the Korean companies
that lobbied and bribed their way to pocket billions of dollars in fees.

~~~
level09
_> Building a city on top of sand is trouble to begin with, take a look at
Dubai's projects_

Are you sure ? I live in Dubai and have many clients who sell mega-projects.
they sell out really fast and the hotels occupancy rate is really high (~80%)

Even the airport has taken over Heathrow as the busiest airport for
international passengers.

~~~
notastartup

        In a 2009 article describing the collapsing Dubai 
        economy, The New York Times reported that the Palm was 
        sinking and this has been confirmed now by geological 
        surveys, at the moment it is 5 millimetres (0.20 in) per 
        year but this could increase rapidly. 
    

I'm sure they have all the cash in the world to make it look like this isn't
the case but there's only so much that engineers can do to reverse the laws of
nature.

~~~
Retric
You can float buildings on sand/marshland. It costs more, but the buildings
are vary stable.

