"I don't know if you remember, there was a scene in a subway station. But some of the video was filmed in Songdo. "Gangnam Style" refers to the fashionable Gangnam district in Seoul. Songdo appears in the most famous music video ever to come out of South Korea. There's a Coast Guard building and a tall trade tower, as well as a park, golf course and university.Ĭhances are you've actually seen this place. It's about an hour outside Seoul, built on reclaimed tidal flats along the Yellow Sea. Thirty years after he imagined the city, Park's baby is close to 70 percent built, with 36,000 people living in the business district and 90,000 residents in greater Songdo. Park Yeon Soo conceived this city of the future back in 1986. Just building a place as an "international business district" doesn't mean it will become one. But it takes a lot more than a nearby airport to be a city of the future. Songdo is a stone's throw from South Korea's Incheon Airport, its main international hub. And the surface infrastructure was built in tandem with the new airport."Ī big selling point on the city's website: "3.5 HOURS TO 1/3 OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION." "The government built the bridge directly from the airport to the Songdo International Business District. "From the get-go, it was designed on the basis of connectivity and competitiveness," says Kasada. Songdo, a city built from scratch in South Korea, is one of Kasarda's prime examples. "The 18th century really was a waterborne century, the 19th century a rail century, the 20th century a highway, car, truck century - and the 21st century will increasingly be an aviation century, as the globe becomes increasingly connected by air," Kasarda says. The idea, as he has put it, is to offer businesses "rapid, long-distance connectivity on a massive scale." Kasarda says future cities should be built intentionally around or near airports. In 2011, a University of North Carolina business professor named John Kasarda published a book called Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next. One vision of the perfect city of the future: a place that offers easy access to air travel. Getting around a city is one thing - and then there's the matter of getting from one city to another. This story is the latest in NPR's Cities Project.
Instead, this young city has become populated mostly by Koreans.
Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.Songdo, outside Seoul, was envisioned as a futuristic international business hub, drawing residents from all over the world.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. can help support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating. How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. Photos: Post photographers have been on the ground from the very beginning of the war - here’s some of their most powerful work. Russia has used an array of weapons against Ukraine, some of which have drawn the attention and concern of analysts. The weapons: Ukraine is making use of weapons such as Javelin antitank missiles and Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, provided by the United States and other allies. Russia appears set to resume ground offensives, with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu telling troops on Saturday to intensify attacks “in all operational sectors” of Ukraine. The fight: Russia’s recent operational pause, which analysts identified in recent weeks as an effort to regroup troops before doubling down on Ukraine’s south and east, appears to be ending. However, the exact coordinates needed to ensure a safe passage for ships were still being negotiated on Thursday, U.N. The latest: The United Nations has expressed hope that the first grain shipments from blockaded Ukrainian ports could start Friday.