By Douglas Esser
South Korea has a national policy to embrace technology in its cities, said Jin-Kyu Jung, an associate professor at the 糖心vlog视频 who grew up in Busan, the country鈥檚 second-largest city. Planners everywhere are pushing to use 鈥渟mart city鈥� information and communication technologies to improve transportation, utilities and services.
Just don鈥檛 forget to ask local residents what they think is smart, Jung said. Local communities are often marginalized in planning conversations, yet greatly affected by the outcomes.
Planning with the people
It鈥檚 amazing what the internet and smartphones can do. Smart city technology can add sensors to street lights and turn them into weather stations. Information screens at bus stops can provide far more information than the next arrival time. In Busan, for example, residents headed for a crowded beach can select coordinates on their phone to reserve a site.
As an urban geographer, Jung is familiar with smart city technology. He teaches urban planning and geographic information science in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (IAS). One class, working with the city of Redmond, Washington, recently offered suggestions for transit-oriented development around Sound Transit鈥檚 light rail link.
This year, Jung co-led a study abroad trip to South Korea with Gunwha Oh, a lecturer in the UW Department of Geography and affiliate IAS faculty. For the Mapping Communities in the Smart City seminar, the group of nine UW students from the Bothell and Seattle campuses traveled in South Korea from Aug. 10 to Sept. 3. to see what smart city technology means on the ground.
They spent most of their time in Busan, a port city like Seattle that is developing smart technology in several districts. They attended workshops with students at Pusan National University (PNU), a national smart city training institution. (The city changed the spelling of its name to a B in 2000, but the university stuck with the P spelling.)
What鈥檚 smart in Busan
One highlight for students was visiting Busan鈥檚 Ami-Dong district. Historically poor, it was built on a graveyard using the tombstones. When students asked local residents about the impact of smart technology, they mentioned two things.
Street cameras, which had been installed by police to fight crime, weren鈥檛 particularly well-placed. But there was another service that residents liked: neighborhood laundries. They not only provided a place to wash clothes, people also could take showers. The laundries turned into gathering spaces.
The technology isn鈥檛 new, of course, but to the residents, it was smart for community building, Jung said.
The visit to Ami-Dong stood out because the students had been in presentations with city planners touting high-tech improvements, said Daisy Rithvixay, a UW Bothell senior double majoring in Global Studies and in Law, Economics & Public Policy.
鈥淲e never saw the interaction between the city planners and the community that they鈥檙e trying to improve,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen it came to Ami-Dong, we saw that sense of community that we were missing the whole time. We were really inspired.鈥�
Overall, the students were impressed by the smart city technology they saw, Rithvixay said. For example, Koreans use a universal transit pass, like the Orca card familiar to Seattle commuters, but the card also can be used in vending machines or to buy groceries.
Cross-cultural perspectives
After traveling outside the United States for her first time, Rithvixay said the study abroad trip was an enriching experience. She said the students talked about making a reunion trip to Korea in five years to see the smart city improvements and urban regeneration.
For their work with students in PNU鈥檚 Department of Urban Planning in Busan, the UW students received a Korean Certificate of Smart City Planning. The students also visited and met with officials in three other cities: Changwon, Sejong and Songdo International District in Incheon.
As a result of the study abroad visit, PNU may send a similar-sized group of students and faculty next summer to UW Bothell to learn about smart city technology in the Seattle area. They might take part in one of Jung鈥檚 courses. In addition, experts from Changwon Research Institute, a think tank associated with the city of Changwon, may visit Seattle, Jung said.
The Koreans are interested in how Seattle uses smart governance 鈥� how to use technology to enable more participatory decision making, Jung said. For example, Seattle鈥檚 smartphone app pinpoints potholes and other problems by drawing on the residents鈥� collective intelligence.
Smart beyond technology
More smart city technology is coming, said Jung, but rushing its development too often overlooks the need to have 鈥渟mart鈥� defined by the community.
鈥淚t is important that we value people鈥檚 knowledge based on their experience,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is what I鈥檓 interested in 鈥� how better technology can create better communities.鈥�
