Study on the Case of Songdo Smart City based on the Citizen Participation Approach

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the level of citizen participation in Songdo smart city project, once called U-city project, in order to provide citizens with U-service anywhere by using new IT technology in the Incheon Free Economic Zone, a landfill site. To this end, it reviews the literature on smart city, and derives project’s problems, evaluates according to the framework, and proposes implications. This paper uses the “Citizen Participation Evaluation Framework” formalized by Simonofsky and his colleagues and analyzes civic participation method by dividing it into democratic participants, co-creators, and ICT users. The level of citizen participation in the Songdo project is evaluated according to the criteria presented by this framework and the results are presented. The analysis period is from 2003 to 2016, when the government office was opened and the initial foundation was completed. As a result of analysis, Songdo had built open data and infrastructure for citizens, but citizens were participated as ICT users only. Although citizens living in smart cities should be the co-creators and participants in democratic decision-making for solving urban problems, Songdo was missing these factors. In conclusion, this paper argues that Songdo remains in the U-city paradigm as the 'smart people', a key element among the smart city components, has been neglected and ultimately reveals a fundamental limit to its growth into a sustainable smart city. In addition, suggestions for improvement are presented. This paper is meaningful in that it presented lessons and implications that the human factors should be emphasized as the subject of technology and services to develop into an authentic smart city through the case of Songdo.