Barun Roy: A Korean benchmark

ASIA FILE

New Songdo is going to be a test bed of what future cities in Korea will be like.

When a nation wants to develop fast and achieve the most in the least possible time, it makes no sense to quarrel with the means. China is a shining example of what such an open mind can achieve, and now South Korea provides a new proof that this approach remains a valid philosophy of growth.

Korea needs a large dose of foreign direct investment, and needs it quickly, to rev up its sluggish, high-unemployment economy, and knows it's going to be tough, in the face of strong Chinese competition, unless it can create for itself a new position of advantage. That position, it has reasoned, lies in projecting itself as the global business hub for Northeast Asia, playing the same role as Hong Kong does for China.

The reasoning has its merit. Hong Kong is fully occupied with serving the Chinese market, which is huge, and can't pay enough attention to whole of northeast Asia, a region with an immense business potential. Besides northern China, Japan, and the two Koreas, this region also includes eastern Russia and is expected to account for at least 30 per cent of global GDP by 2020. Here's an opportunity, Seoul argues, that shouldn't be passed and must be exploited quickly before others get around to seize it.

Seoul got into action as soon as it made up its mind in the wake of the jolt from the 1997 Asian economic meltdown. It needed a new, capacious international airport and has got one. Six years after opening in March 2001, Incheon International Airport is already the tenth largest in the world in terms of annual passenger throughput (27.6 million in 2006) and is being expanded for even bigger volumes. And it had to establish a free economic zone next to the airport where sops to foreign investors would match Chinese levels to help recreate a Pudong on the Korean peninsula.

That zone is now well underway across three Incheon coasal districts "" Yeongjong Island where the airport is, Cheongna, and Songdo, a manmade island created out of a landfill. While Yeongjong and Cheongna are marked as the zone's logistics and leisure/tourism hubs, respectively, Songdo is on its way to becoming an international business city.

And because the business hub, called New Songdo City, is the lynchpin of South Korea's northeast Asian dream, the government isn't leaving anything to chance. The entire project, located 40 miles west of Seoul, has been given over to a private joint venture to finish it by 2014.

The company, formed between Gale International of the US (70 per cent) and Korea's POSCO (30 per cent), will spend an estimated $25 billion to build it lock, stock and barrel, transforming 1,500 acres of reclaimed land into a custom-made city for some 65,000 people to live and 300,000 to work in. The developers claim this makes New Songdo the largest private, use-specific real estate development in history and the first city in the world planned entirely as an international business district.

The master plan has been designed by the renowned architects Kohn Pedersen Fox and will make room for 50 million sq feet of office space, 30 million sq feet of residential space, 10 million sq feet of retail space, 5 million sq feet of hotel space, and 10 million sq feet of public space. The plan ensures that everything that goes up in New Songdo will have a gleaming, squeaky-clean look and a distinct beauty of its own. Under construction, among other buildings, is a 65-storey, $500 million Northeast Asia Trade Tower, to serve as New Songdo's signature structure, for which Jones Lang LaSalle have just been appointed exclusive global leasing agents. And a 151-storey super tall building, called the Incheon Tower "" two interconnected triangular blocks looking like huge cutting knives "" will rise 2,012 feet into the sky as a symbol of Korea's new ambition.

But buildings alone won't distinguish New Songdo. The world will be watching its growth intently for an entirely different reason. It will be the first fully planned "ubiquitous" city in the world where all major information systems (residential, medical, business, services) will share data to fully integrate life inside or outside home. Computers will be built into houses, streets, office buildings and facilities infrastructure, giving residents full, round-the-clock command of their movements and activities wherever they happen to be in the city.

New Songdo, thus, is going to be a test bed of what future cities will be like, where technology will enable residents' personal lifestyles and drive corporate innovations. It will set a new "best practice" benchmark that urban planners and real estate developers all over the world are going to follow. And for South Korea, the third most IT-savvy nation in the world, it will lead the way for at least 15 more "ubiquitous" cities aimed at the international business community.