if you build it, will they come?
April 20, 2005 2:48 PM   Subscribe

Metropolis ex nihilo? Construction of New Songdo City, South Korea, is now underway. Within 10 years, a fully planned city of 100,000 people will spring up on a man-made island. It is intended to be a new, multi-national commercial hub for its booming Asian region. The developers say all the right things - cultural facilities, mixed use buildings, ample greenspace, etc. - but can a diverse, livable city really be so easily manufactured?
posted by Urban Hermit (16 comments total)
 
can a diverse, livable city really be so easily manufactured?

Dude, you never played SimCity?
posted by sveskemus at 2:55 PM on April 20, 2005


SimCity was a hard game. SlumCity is what it seemed like most of the time.
posted by bashos_frog at 3:03 PM on April 20, 2005


K, you build the city and I'll play Rampage with it.
posted by dreamsign at 3:10 PM on April 20, 2005


Has this ever worked?

At best, artificial cities, or at least planned-from-scratch cities seem a bit awkward and lack the usual sense of place, like Canberrra. At worst, they're a colossal disaster, like Brazilia.

Engineering a completely new city has been every urban planner's wet dream, since that profession's birth just about a century ago. Unfortunately, planners have never suceeded in replicating the sucess of places which achieved their unique identity and character as a result of historical accident.
posted by pieisexactlythree at 3:14 PM on April 20, 2005


> but can a diverse, livable city really be so easily manufactured?

yes
IJburg (dutch), a brand new range of islands in Amsterdam is a good example.
posted by Substrata at 3:17 PM on April 20, 2005


Ørestad is an example of an "artificial" city in Denmark.
posted by sveskemus at 3:27 PM on April 20, 2005


Other planned cities here.
posted by nyterrant at 3:29 PM on April 20, 2005


Er, make that here.
posted by nyterrant at 3:30 PM on April 20, 2005


What about the grid system of New York?
posted by sleslie at 3:33 PM on April 20, 2005


There's no successful artificial cities? What about the grid system of New York?
posted by sleslie at 3:35 PM on April 20, 2005


There's no successful artificial cities? What about the grid system of New York?

sleslie: the grid system of New York is just that - a road system. It was an efficient way of organizing the city and distributing land, but it's not the same kind of wholly-planned city.

Has this ever worked?

pieisexactlythree: I am encouraged by the examples Substrata and sveskemus have linked to, but I think New Songdo is something more ambitious - not merely an area newly selected for "urban" development and comprehensively planned, but a massive scale development that is intended to be executed in only 10 years, under a single concept, and meant to be a city in every sense: self-sufficient, densely-populated, with its own commercial centre (i.e. not a 'main street', but highrise offices of multinational corporations), etc.

Thus I think that your examples of Canberra and Brasilia are more apt comparisons, and I share your apprehensions:

At best, artificial cities, or at least planned-from-scratch cities seem a bit awkward and lack the usual sense of place, like Canberrra. At worst, they're a colossal disaster, like Brazilia.

The designers of New Songdo claim to have taken these lessons into account - they want diverse architecture and walkable spaces. But is it enough - can there be a real sense of place or community in a city populated largely by foreign corporate imports?
posted by Urban Hermit at 4:38 PM on April 20, 2005


Moving 100,000 people to a low lying island made of fill in a tectonically active part of the Pacific seems like sort of a bad idea to me.
posted by fshgrl at 4:45 PM on April 20, 2005


can a diverse, livable city really be so easily manufactured?

Well, that's the real question, isn't it? Sure a city can be "manufactured" even with some modicum of success, but the original posting poses the question of diversity and livability. The latter can be achieved, at a price. New urbanist communities are typically upscale despite their pretensions to affordability.

What a wholly new city lacks is a real estate market with major pricing differentials. All the space on the market is new space, and thus can command top rents for its class. Now, the world's great cities owe much of their vibrancy and economic dynamism to startup businesses and immigrant communities. These have a hard time finding purchase in a place where there isn't any significant disparity in land rents. Some new cities like Chandigarh, designed by Le Corbusier, have succeeded in becoming vibrant communities, with the caveat that they have accommodated cheap housing and workspace in the form of unplanned slums which have cropped up around the periphery.

The upside to "urban decay" is that poorer, undervalued areas can function as defacto business incubators. Much of the urban renewal in these places is done on an ad-hoc basis by community-minded immigrant groups who set up urban villages or colonies in the more beat-down parts of the city. This kind of dynamic will take a generation at least to develop in Songdo City. Till then, the place will probably be a bit sterile.
posted by pieisexactlythree at 7:28 PM on April 20, 2005


Chandigarh, is ,in my opinion, one of the most boring cities in India. But I blame the circular roads deal rather than the planned aspect per se. (same for Canberra).
posted by dhruva at 8:17 PM on April 20, 2005


Yeah, what is it with circular roads? I just visited Canberra a couple weeks ago - and, naturally, got completely lost several times.

I don't think that, in general, people's brains are naturally good at dealing with roads that go from A to A without corners.

Back on topic: for the sake of the residents, I hope New Songdo City's architects are better at their jobs than its web designers.
posted by flabdablet at 2:35 AM on April 21, 2005


can a diverse, livable city really be so easily manufactured?

No. And it won't be, either. This is not a city being planned, not in the way one normally thinks of cities. It's a business enclave, a highrent ghetto to try and attract foreign investment and business, in hopes of encouraging the 'hub of asia' handwaving the government has been doing. Nice plan, no basis in measurable reality.

It hasn't a hope in hell of succeeding on any terms but that. If it ends up being anything but a massive boondoggle, I'll give up kimchi for a month.

I hope New Songdo City's architects are better at their jobs than its web designers.

That is bog-standard Korean website design, flabdablet, including the massive use of Flash and the navigation paradigm. I'd wager 90% of commercial sites in Korea are cut from the same broadband-requiring cloth.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:01 AM on April 21, 2005


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