{"id":527645,"date":"2019-01-23T10:43:33","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T10:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/?p=527645"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:17:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:17:36","slug":"the-songdo-ibd-wants-to-say-goodbye-to-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/megatrends\/the-songdo-ibd-wants-to-say-goodbye-to-cars.html","title":{"rendered":"The Songdo IBD Wants to say goodbye to cars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Incheon:<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It ranks among the most ambitious urban projects of recent years.
It is a big bet by South Korea and the private investors who back it.
Most of all, the project – the Songdo International Business District (IBD)<\/strong> – is an experiment: the creation of a \u201csmart city\u201d<\/strong> whose focus on environmental sustainability aims to uphold a high standard of living for residents while keeping air pollution to an absolute minimum.
At a more glamourous level, it even hosts a golf course developed by Jack Nicklaus, a star of the sport.
Some 50 kilometres from the country\u2019s capital, Seoul<\/a>, the Songdo IBD is located in a larger urban area called Songdo City, which itself belongs to the Incheon Metropolitan City.
After an investment of $35 billion, 36,000 people live in the IBD and 90,000 in Songdo City, while more than 20,000 residential units are occupied or under construction, according to a dedicated website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Efficient Transport<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The IBD\u2019s residential areas are built following a \u201cmixed use\u201d criterion so that people have offices, parks, hospitals and schools nearby<\/strong>. Buildings are a 12-minute walk<\/strong> from a bus stop or metro station, while bicycle paths run for 15 miles (25 kilometres)<\/strong> and connect to another 90-mile (145 kilometres)<\/strong>\n network in the greater Songdo area. Along its canals ply water taxis. \n\u00abSongdo IBD is designed around the people who live and work there\u00bb, \nreads the website.
\nRail transport is at the heart of the IBD\u2019s mobility, especially for \nlinks with Seoul and other places in the surrounding region of Incheon.
\nThanks to the Korean National Railroad and the Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit system<\/strong>, the IBD is also well-connected with the rest of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Songdo
View of Sogdo Beach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Need to be Green<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Songdo IBD\u2019s developers made it as green<\/strong> as \npossible by dedicating about 40% of its area to green spaces and parks, \nranging from those around buildings to a park inspired by Central Park \non Manhattan Island. The amounted of space reserved for green is about \ndouble that of New York City.
\nConstruction techniques were also deployed to protect the environment<\/strong>.\n According to figures published on the website, about 100 buildings have\n earned the U.S. Green Building Council\u2019s LEED certification for \ncompliance with environmental energy criteria, the highest concentration\n anywhere in the world.
\nThe same care has been taken in water management<\/strong>, where\n 40% of what is used for domestic purposes is recycled by treatment \nplants. Garbage is collected inside the buildings, \u201csucked\u201d away through\n pneumatic tubes to plants where it is used to produce electricity.
\nAs a result, the Songdo IBD releases only a third of the harmful emissions of an average city of the same size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Model City in Need of People<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The idea of creating a city from scratch that could become a model<\/strong> for urban development<\/strong>\n was proposed by the South Korean government in 2000. It was entrusted \nto a public-private consortium led by U.S. real estate developer Gale International<\/strong>, the Korean construction company POSCO E&C<\/strong> and the Incheon Metropolitan City<\/strong>, which administers the Incheon region.
\nIt belongs to a broader plan to promote the Incheon Free Economic Zone<\/strong>, an area including Songdo and two other areas that would serve as business hub for the country and the region.
\nConstruction began in 2001, when 500 tons of sand were transported to \nthe coast to prepare the embankments on which the foundations of the \ncity were built. Since then, the project has evolved, with new \nconstruction sites opening in hopes of reaching the goal of 300,000 resident by 2022<\/strong>.
\nHowever, the vision behind the Songdo IBD sometimes collides with the \ndifficulty of turning it into reality. It was initially planned to be \ncompleted in 2015, then the date was pushed back to 2018 and then again \nto 2022. The number of residents is small compared with its potential. \nMany offices and residential apartments remain empty. But the South \nKorean government remains convinced it is simply a matter of time, \npointing to the steady growth in its population. The efficient \ninfrastructure connecting it to the surrounding region as well as the \nSongdo IBD\u2019s high quality of life should attract more people and \ncompanies to take part in South Korea\u2019s dream of a \u201csmart city\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It ranks among the most ambitious urban projects of recent years. It is a big bet by South Korea and the private investors who back it. Most of all, the project – the Songdo International Business District (IBD) – is an experiment: the creation of a \u201csmart city\u201d whose focus on environmental sustainability aims to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":527653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[19015,19017,19010,12217],"yst_prominent_words":[7445,9707,377,3176,5586,7078,11416,16985,1996,7081,7092,8124],"class_list":["post-527645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-megatrends","tag-asian-continent","tag-city-of-tomorrow","tag-green-transportation","tag-sustainable-development"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527645"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547202,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527645\/revisions\/547202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527645"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=527645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}