Smart City

Songdo (Links to an external site.), Korea is often heralded (Links to an external site.)as a prime example of ‘smart city’ development from the ground up. Songdo was planned and developed with the explicit intent to leverage ‘smart’ infrastructure as effectively as possible. And like other master-planned communities, Songdo is an excellent example of what is possible when we start from scratch to design and develop new urban spaces. As we’ve seen in the module 1B articles, for contemporary urban planners and designers, the capacity to improve urban systems via new technologies is exceedingly appealing. But what, exactly, we call the new forms of urban design and urban planning has yet to be decided in a broad way. The smart city concept has, since the late oughts, been debated and defined among scholars and professionals in not only the urban planning arena, but also from within computer science disciplines. ‘Smart’, it seems, can imply a lot when used to describe a city. Our module 1B reading draws on the work of two sets of urban scholars who sought to make sense of what ‘smart city’ actually means when understood in the context of contemporary urban spaces. And in doing so, the authors of each of the articles that you’ve read for module 1B have offered guidance to future designers and planners who find the notion of a ‘smart’ city appealing. Your assignment for this discussion is as follows. After reading the articles, please spend some time reflecting on what most appeals to you about smart cities as Nam and Pardo and Albino et al define them. Be specific about what you do, or do not, find valuable about the efforts that each of these articles makes to classify smart cities. Then, thinking about the future of urban space, tell us what aspects of the smart city movement you would expect will persist in urban design and planning projects. As you’re speculating about the future of smart city design, go out into the wilds of the Internet and bring back some evidence (or examples) of what you are describing to us in your response post.  Original posts must include: **THREE DIRECT QUOTES (including citation with author, date, and page number) from the reading. Direct quotes must be made bold in the text of your response. **At least one link to a relevant webpage or news item. The link should be described and contextualized in the text of your response. **At least one relevant image or video embedded in the text of your response. The image or video must clearly add value to your response and be referenced in the text of your response.