Smart City and the Reinvented Politics of Governing Through Datafied Environment in Songdo, South Korea

Abstract

This chapter examines the linkage between two governing strategies: the discourse of sustainable development and sociotechnical infrastructure of smart cities. Drawing on a case study of Songdo, South Korea, this chapter problematizes the interplay between the historical evolution of sustainable development as a new growth paradigm and the new urban governance model of smart cities afforded by the new regime of digital media. In doing so, this chapter explains how a smart city emerged from complex relationships among diverse actors and things including the nation-state, IT corporations, transnational non-governmental organizations, digital technologies, the urban environment, and the citizens. This transition is largely driven by the rationale that posits sustainability as an aim of “good governance.” This good urban governance model in turn foregrounds the civic virtue demanded of the globally minded, ecologically conscious, and responsible “good citizen.” Subsequently, this chapter challenges the role of the digital in the local experience of smart and green city, in the sense that the digital technologies were used to impose standardized universal solutions to the local problems.