In this city there are no garbage trucks, all the waste goes to a complex system of pneumatic pipes where at the end they are classified with the objective of being reused as an energy source. There are no gas stations or internal combustion cars here either. It might seem like a dream and even the synopsis of a movie, but it's real. Welcome to Songdo.
Songdo is a city that was born as part of an initiative of South Korea and the International Business District (IBD) to find an alternative to saturated Seoul. Here it is a question of giving a turn to urban development and, in passing, being an example for the cities of the future. The main objective of Songdo is to become the first intelligent and fully sustainable city, and where the main strategy to achieve this is to eliminate the use of cars as a means of transport.
Welcome to Songdo
Songdo was born as a project in 2000 and in 2002 its construction started with an initial budget of 35,000 million dollars. It is located 65 kilometers from Seoul along a territory recovered next to the Yellow Sea. From the beginning, this project attracted the attention of the world due to its particular focus, since it set the goal of emitting at least 50% less greenhouse gases compared to Seoul.
The city is about the size of downtown Boston (30.5 million square meters) and today already emits one third less greenhouse gases compared to Seoul. This was achieved in part because it was determined that 40% of the city's area would be destined for green areas (twice New York). The largest park in Songdo, located in the center of the city, is inspired by Central Park and measures almost 410,000 square meters.
Songdo's planning bet for a radical change in the construction and distribution of urban components, so here we will see how priority is given to public transport, such as buses, subways and bicycles. The cars of internal combustion are prohibited to circulate in the city and only some electric cars are seen, since the main means of transport is the bicycle.
To achieve this, the whole area is of mixed use, that is, both the stores and the offices, parks, hospitals and schools are close to the residential areas, which means that the inhabitants can move between home, work and school only walking. In fact one of the rules for residential areas is that the bus or metro stops were a maximum of 12 minutes on foot. In the interior of Songdo there are almost 25 kilometers of bike lanes, which are connected with a large circuit of 145 kilometers that covers the city.
Today there are about 20,000 residential units inhabited and it is estimated that there are just over 100,000 inhabitants, but it is believed that this figure will rise above 300,000. More than 100 buildings are LEED certified and it is being pointed out that the majority of residential buildings have this certification in the future. The current LEED buildings recycle at least 40% of the water they use and the energy comes from renewable sources, which is stored in their own batteries, so the use of the electric power network only represents 20%.
Everything in Songdo is automated, in the streets there are only low consumption LED lights, solar panels, wind turbines, water and waste is recycled, and everything works like a Swiss watch. The goal is for the city to finish building in 2020 and it is estimated that its final size will be more than 40 million square meters.
It is still too early to know if this will be the future
In spite of all these kindnesses, Songdo has not attracted the attention of the inhabitants and the companies, since up to now only 1,600 companies have offices in the city, of which only 58 are foreign. One of the main arguments is that everything is still centralized in Seoul, which is located almost two hours away.
Due to the above, few people have decided to move to Songdo, especially given the lack of commercial activity and sources of employment, since there are no companies or people interested in investing in any local business, the city is not attractive to most of the population. people for more technology you have.
In spite of this, the Korean government is betting everything on this model of city, which is why they have given incentives to prestigious schools and local companies to move to Songdo in order to awaken the interest of the citizens, but even the moment has not been enough. We'll see what happens in a couple of years when the city is finished.
If it continues like this it will be a very beautiful city, do not you think?