Songdo in Shropshire? Is South Korea’s smart city model viable in the United Kingdom?
Construction began on South Korea’s largest ‘smart city’, Songdo, in 2010 and reached completion in 2015. Located on reclaimed land within the district of Incheon, Songdo was a highly anticipated project which received significant financial backing from international businesses and educational institutions, as well as the South Korean government. Songdo was expected to set a world standard in smart city design and construction and included a number of cutting-edge features, including an inbuilt citywide computer system available in the street, apartments and offices. This technology allows homeowners to control lighting, heating and more from control panels within their homes. Sensors located in the street provide real-time traffic and public transport usage data. The city also has several environmentally orientated design features which prevent water wastage as well as a pneumatic waste management system, removing the need for on-street rubbish disposal and storage. The blank canvas offered by the reclaimed land and the prospect of undertaking such a project from scratch excited both investors and citizens.
However, would a project of this scale be viable in the United Kingdom? Could funding be secured? Would land be available? And finally, would an experiment of this kind be trusted and embraced by the British people?
A number of potential incompatibilities arise when considering a project of this kind in the UK. The first issue would be a lack of developable land within UK cities. It is unlikely that an area the size of Songdo (600 hectares) would be available for development due to Greenbelt environmental restrictions and concerns about population density. This would detract from the positive environmental impact that smart cities can implement. Another key issue which would prevent the UK from being able to facilitate such a project is the lack of high-speed internet connectivity throughout the country. The level of connectivity required to operate a smart city is beyond the demands of the current internet infrastructure in the UK, even in areas with the fastest connection speeds. The UK is in the bottom three countries in Europe when it comes to the implementation of fibre internet.
The most important factor to consider is the response of the general population to the implementation of smart cities. Studies show that 70% of the British population do not understand what a smart city is. Whilst Songdo was a ground-breaking project in terms of ambition, the city is now extremely underpopulated and has not reached its full ‘smart’ potential. We have to question whether the British people would feel comfortable with smart city technology. With greater connectivity and data collection, comes a higher level of citizen surveillance. The smart city model in South Korea has been described as a ‘data circus’ with citizens being rewarded for their data through bitcoin payment. I do not believe that the British people would favour the trade-off of giving up their personal data for more efficient living. It is also important to consider the cybersecurity risks of implementing smart city technology. If smart city technology is not properly fortified, entire cities could be brought to a halt by a nefarious actor.
It is clear that there would be a number of large obstacles which would need to be overcome to implement smart city technology within the UK. However, a more achievable method of getting the technological benefits, without needing a large area of land or as high a level of data collection, would be to update the UK’s pre-existing cities with smart city technology. Some efforts to introduce smart city technology to UK cities have already been made. In 2018, Bristol won the Smart Cities Award for its project, ‘Bristol is Open’. The aim of the project is to provide integrated monitoring and management of city services, from real-time traffic and transport statistics to telecare services for vulnerable residents. The project aims to provide citizen-centric solutions and engage members of society who are at a technological disadvantage, such as the elderly and those from lower-income backgrounds, and therefore, are likely to be left behind in a smart city revolution. The project has been actively documenting problems faced by residents and finding technology-based solutions. The project leaders have then been monitoring citizen adaptability to these solutions. This demonstrates a key distinction between the approach used in designing and populating Songdo which has been notably technology-driven but lacking in citizen engagement. The Bristol project has been operating in tandem with 5G data trials within the city and has involved significant research into ethics, data collection and privacy policy issues in order to prevent cybersecurity breaches.
London is still a nationwide leader in implementing smart technology. In the past three years efforts have been made to use smart city technology in accordance with the UK’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Pollution management using real-time air quality sensors has been a key development. Projects have been outlined to install ‘smart lampposts’ around the city in 2021 which will measure air quality, provide free public Wi-Fi, electric vehicle charge points and real-time public transport data. These developments have been designed to improve the lives of citizens without collecting large amounts of personal data and therefore have so far proven to be uncontroversial. It is hoped that if these developments are successful in London, they will soon be adopted in other UK cities.
It is apparent that the UK is not capable of conducting such a large-scale smart city building project as Songdo. This is the result of many different factors, including lack of space, lack of public engagement and understanding, security risks and inadequate infrastructure. The construction of long-term projects such as Songdo is also incompatible with the UK government’s five to ten-year outlook. However, this does not necessarily mean that the UK is at a disadvantage, the progress already achieved in cities such as Bristol and London show the benefits of a more small-scale approach to smart city integration. The adoption of smart city technology has been citizen and security-focused from the ground-up, something which was desperately lacking in Songdo. If the UK continues to implement smart city technology with its current approach, aided by the arrival of 5G infrastructure, I am sure that greater interest and industry funding will follow.
Course Reflection
As is clear from my choice of Digisoc 3 task, one of my favourite areas of the course was the ‘Smart Cities’ module. I enjoyed this module because it incorporated elements from other topics that we studied, from internet of things technology (IoT) to ethics and data collection. I believe that smart cities are the ultimate manifestation of digital society in the physical world. Smart cities offer a convergence of conventional society with the digital sphere and its associated technology.
At the beginning of the course, I sent a future-dated email to myself where I outlined what I hoped to gain from the module. This included wanting to gain a better understanding of what the term digital society means as well as greater insight into the role of business and security in a digital society. I now have a firm awareness of what the term ‘digital society’ means, although I understand that it is a nuanced term which can be applied to both broad and narrow situations. In my initial definition of digital society, I described it as a ‘form of society which exists within a digital space’ but I no longer think this is an adequate definition. It is clear from the advent of smart cities that digital society is not just limited to digital spaces but is also present in the physical world. In regard to business and security, I really enjoyed the modules which detailed data collection and the ethical implications which arise from it. This was particularly interesting in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal which has brought these issues to the general public’s attention over the past year. This course has made me consider my online presence and the ways in which I choose to share data. The perspective that I use my data as payment in order to use services such as Facebook and Instagram for free has certainly changed the way that I think about social media, in particular.
These newly acquired perspectives resonate with my initial thoughts about digital society. In my email, I stated that I believed that digital society is an exciting phenomenon, but I believed that we should interact with it with caution. I still hold these beliefs, but I feel I have a better understanding of where I should be cautious, such as with cybersecurity, data-sharing and the use of IoT devices. I have found learning about the potential capabilities of the IoT fascinating and chose to write my second Digisoc task about wearable fitness technology and its associated benefits and risks. Another skill I have gained from this module is the ability to write blog posts as I had previously never written in this style.
In summary, the Digital Society module has developed my analytical and writing skills as well as making me more aware of the benefits of living in a digital society, but also cautious about the potential security risks associated with the internet.
