This talk on 2 March is practically the first invited talk I am giving in 2023. It’s going to be on “smart cities as the urban utopia”, and I will be introducing the case of Songdo City, while the other panelist would speak about Ecuador’s Yachay City of Knowledge. It’s been a long while since my visit to Yachay City of Knowledge, which happened in 2017. This seminar is a good occasion to re-engage with the materials on Yachay City of Knowledge, and revisit my own previous work on Songdo City, which can be found below. A new co-authored chapter is on its way, which further situates the development of Songdo City in the context of the crisis management of the (neoliberalising) Korean developmental state.
- Shin, Hyun Bang (2017) Envisioned by the state: entrepreneurial urbanism and the making of Songdo City, South Korea. In: Datta, Ayona and Shaban, Abdul, (eds.) Mega-Urbanization in the Global South: Fast Cities and New Urban Utopias of the Postcolonial State. Routledge studies in urbanism and the city. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, pp. 83-100. [view]
