Songdo International Business District (South Korea)

       This is Songdo International Business District, the world’s most futuristic urban area. It’s being built 40 miles southwest of the second-most populated city in the world, Seoul, South Korea. The $40 billion project is along the waterfront in the city of Incheon and is embracing two key concepts that urban planners are in love with: The first is Aerotropolis, which means the airport is integrated into the urban center instead of banishing it far outside of the city. This allows for shorter trips to and from the place that’s going to get you out of town--this’ll be an emerging pattern in 21st century planning as air travel continues to become accessible to more and more people in our increasingly interconnected world. Songdo is brilliantly directly connected to the airport via the 7-mile long Incheon bridge so you’ve just got a straight shot that gets you there in like 10 minutes that’s also got these incredible views and is the first thing visitors see coming into the city. The other key theme is Ubiquitous City, which is a uniquely Korean concept where every device, component, service is linked to an informational network through wireless computing technology,allowing for greater coordination and a more efficient and synchronized city than has ever been possible before. An example of this is Songdo’s trash system, which won’t rely on garbage trucks, because a network of tubes will suck in the garbage straight from the can and through a system of pipes, transport it efficiently to treatment facilities. Songdo’s so dedicated to being a model for sustainability that it has set aside 40% of its land area to be outdoor spaces like parks and it’ll become the first city in the world outside of the United States to achieve LEED certification, which is the highest energy consumption and waste standards possible with currently available technology. As a tip-of-the-hat to other great cities, Songdo will also incorporate replicas of New York’s Central Park and Venice’s historic canals. Overall, construction is currently half done. It already has 67,000 people living there studying and working at its many schools, including the foreign campuses of four American universities, but it’s struggled to attract Korean businesses as the government is refusing to give tax incentives for relocation, because that would create an unfair playing field favoring Songdo over other cities in the country. Still, if it stays squarely focused on the future, Songdo’s a long-term investment that’s likely to pay off.