Culture
Sleepy in Songdo, Korea’s Smartest City
The hardest thing about living in an eco-friendly master-planned utopia? Meeting your neighbors.
Three years ago, 35-year-old Lee Mi-Jung followed her husband from the small coastal city of Pohang, best known for its steel industry and fish market, across the South Korean peninsula to Songdo. Billed as the world’s “smartest city,” it promised her all kinds of conveniences: an efficient trash system, an abundance of parks, as well as a vibrant international community—all wrapped in a walkable, sensor-laden showpiece of 21st century urban design.