Ep.4 Smart Cities: Then, Now, & The Future

Welcome back for the final lesson in this little video series of ours! In this episode we’ll go over the smart city built in Songdo, South Korea, and see what we can learn from it so that we can make smart cities a reality in the Philippines. You know smart cities popping up everywhere. San Diego, San Francisco, Amsterdam, these are just a few of the locations that have already joined smart city movement. To keep things simple let’s focus on one, and take a look at Songdo, South Korea. In Songdo they created a smart city that’s more like an upscale real estate development featuring things like high tech facilities and upgraded living conditions. In this situation their approach was to build a giant corporate park that treated the people of the community more like customers as opposed to being of service to them. The result? The developers are having trouble getting enough corporate investment to cover their costs. Now this same pattern has repeated itself if in Ordos, China, and Eko-Atlantic City in Lagos where they’ve basically become ghost cities. So what’s the takeaway? Smart Cities are not just something you force onto a population. You have to involve the people of the community so that you can truly understand their needs, and the barriers they face. Smart cities in the developing world don’t have to be flashy futuristic tech cities. What they have to be is approachable, and accessible by everyone, and of actual use to the people it’s meant to benefit. And that’s why I created SmartCT (cheesy smile). So there you have it. We’ve come to the end of our 4 episode journey. I hope that the next time smart cities comes up in a conversation, because it does for me everyday, you won’t feel too out of the loop. If you’re interested in joining our crusade to take over the world you can check us out at smartct.org or just follow the hashtag #welcometoSmartCT. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you around!