CityLab Daily: Thailand Plans a $37 Billion Smart City
Also today: The American amusement park’s wild ride, and how an old golf course became a nature preserve.
A view of the Bangkok skyline. Thailand is planning to build a smart city not far from the capital.
Photographer: Andre Malerba/BloombergOfficials in Thailand on Monday approved plans to build a $37 billion smart city in an industrial hub not far from Bangkok. Spread over about 9 square miles, the master-planned city will include five business centers that will house industries such as precision medicine, clean energy and 5G technology, as well as a residential quarter that will be able to accommodate up to 350,000 people by 2032.
The area has already attracted billions of dollars in investment pledges from firms in fields such as health care and robotics. Officials say the yet-to-be-named city could add an estimated 2 trillion baht ($55 billion) to the country’s GDP within a decade, and help recoup income lost during the pandemic, Bloomberg’s Patpicha Tanakasempipat reports. Today on CityLab: Thailand Plans $37 Billion Smart City to Support Industrial Hub