In South Korea, such a life is not far away, a?
The planned new Songdo is located in the Incheon waterfront district of South Korea's second-largest port city, covering about 607.5 hectares of reclaimed land less than 65 kilometers from the capital, Seoul. It is expected to cost 2.5 million U.S. dollars for the entire project. Sin Songdo will be the first city in Korea and the world to fully adopt the U-town concept. said Mike Ahn, the general manager in charge of the Saematsu Island construction project. An said.
The so-called U City, or ubiquitouscity in English, means ? digital ubiquitous city?
After the completion of the project, the community, hospitals, companies and government agencies in the new Songdo realize a full range of information **** enjoy; digital technology into the homes of residents, streets and office buildings, like a large invisible network to the city branch end of the end as one.
John Kim, a 35-year-old Korean-American who is a leader in urban planning for Saematsujima, describes the future. Kim depicts the future: ? All you need to access the freeway, pay for parking meters, go to the movies, and rent a free public bicycle is a smart key card. It can be anonymous and will not reveal your identity. If you accidentally lose it, you can immediately cancel it and reset the automatic identification system door locks.?
Unique creativity
To compete with Shanghai
Digital cities are a controversial topic in the West, with many believing that personal privacy can't be protected by living in such a city, but South Korea has used the concept of a digital city as a great reason to develop business and high technology. Faced with the regional advantages of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo, developers are looking to build a South Korean homegrown ? free trade zone? that provides a Northeast Asian foothold for multinationals.
The Saematsu Island project was born. With a budget of $25 billion for the entire project, it is the largest development project ever undertaken by the real estate industry. It is expected that by 2014, 65,000 housing units will be built on the island, with a population of 500,000, half of which will be Korean and half of which will be foreigners.
Townsend of the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California, commented: ?U City is a unique idea in Korea.?
Technology with a human face
Rejecting? Garbage? Experimentation
For the urban planning and design of New Songdo, the developers boldly borrowed models from communities in other countries, replicating and combining classic buildings that have stood the test of time. For example, New Pine Island will have canals like those found in Venice, Central Park in New York, and Savannah Pocket Park in Georgia, USA.
According to Fogg, a professor at Stanford University, ? New Pine Island is more like a giant petri dish, probing to find out exactly which technology people want to utilize.?
? Many of these technologies came out of U.S. labs, and applying them in South Korea encountered fewer social and regulatory barriers,? Townsend said. Mr. Kim adheres to two principles; digital cities never carry out ? junk? experiments; and second, digital services will be based on people's needs and never technology-centered.