WC Archive

Last April, Alex told us of New Songdo City, a development project in South Korea that attempted to transform the modern urban concept. The city plan looked ambitious, and Alex posed some very good questions about how whether this really could be a model for a "post-oil megacity."

Today, over at We Make Money Not Art, Régine has an update on what's happening with New Songdo. I have to say, it sounds both intriguing and a bit like something out of a mid-90s vision of the future: Public recycling bins that use RFID to credit recyclers every time they toss in a bottle; pressure-sensitive floors in the homes of older people that can detect a fall and contact help; phones that store health records and can be used to pay for prescriptions. [...] When completed in 2014, the city's infrastructure will be a test bed for new technologies. [...] "The same key can be used to get on the subway, pay a parking meter, see a movie, borrow a free public bicycle and so on. It'll be anonymous, won't be linked to your identity, and if lost you can quickly cancel the card and reset your door locks."

I hope to see the New Songdo model evolve over the next 9 years of development, with the high-tech information infrastructure being subsumed into a larger network for sustainable urban life.