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Abstract
Looking at the South Korean case of New Songdo City and comparing it with two Chinese cities, the Yujiapu Financial District and Lingang New City, this study examines practices of city building in Northeast Asia not simply from an ambitious urban design aspect, but more critically from the planning patterns and emphatic discourses employed in these developments. Designed by top-down decisions to reach the ocean coast from the centres of the metropolitan region, New Songdo City drew upon the Global City paradigm that employs comprehensive modernist urban plans, while city developers aspired it to be a strategically positioned, new urban gate to its metropolitan region. Similar ambitions feed the creation of Yujiapu and Lingang and are coloured by a competitive developmental agenda of catching up the West on the one hand and surpassing regional rival cities on the other hand. These South Korean and Chinese examples stand as emblematic instances of how the currency of global city development is now articulated through popular planning discourses like ecologically conscious and technologically advanced urbanism. Framed as Green City Development, the three new cities reveal narrowly tailored global themes of sustainability and intelligence that address the current modes of imagining urban space in Northeast Asia.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2011-0014185) grant funded by the Korean Government (Grant ID: 201317221065).
Notes on contributor
Jung In Kim has focused upon the interplay between the built environment and the evolution of urban consciousness in Asia. His work and theoretical exploration are organized around a series of dominant urban projects in Asia. He examines the social and political consequences of these projects through close analysis of the grassroot public contestations and how these struggles contribute to debates about urban rights and new forms of citizenship. His critical framework, informed by the emerging field of transnational cultural studies, appeared in The Journal of Architecture, jointly published by RIBA and Routledge, and Architectural Research, published by the Architectural Institute of Korea. He is the author of Be My City (Seoul: Spacetime Publisher, 2012), and most recently appointed as a ‘Public Architect of Seoul’, a designation conferred by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
Notes
1. Simpson and Kelly, “Studying Twenty-first Century Cities,” 361.
2. Ibid., 196–7. See also, Pow, “China Exceptionalism?” 63.
3. Sassen, The Global City, 330.
4. Roy and Ong, Wording Cities, 322.
5. Woo-Cumings, The Developmental State, 1.
6. Woo-Cumings, “Introduction,” 30.
7. The talks of building a large city on the western seaboard of Inchon emerged in the early 1990s and the reclamation of the area was begun in 1994. At the height of the gravest economic crisis in 1997 and from the pressure of the International Monetary Fund, the South Korean Government embarked on the project. Pollock, “New Songdo City,” 62.
8. Zach, “New Songdo City.”
9. In 2003, the first occasion that Korea sold its territory to foreign companies was made. Pollock, “New Songdo City,” 62.
10. Campanella, The Concrete Dragon, 282. Kelbaugh and McCullough, Writing Urbanism, 226.
11. Koolhaas, S,M,L,XL, 510.
12. Facing the Korean economic crisis, Koolhaas addressed that ‘Under these circumstances, new wholes have to be created from unknown and unknowable elements. Strategies that accommodate uncertainties must be devised.’ Koolhaas, Content, 430.
13. Pollock, “New Songdo City,” 62.
14. For the first phase of KPF design, see Whitman et al., “New Songdo City.”
15. Ibid., 4.
16. New Songdo City is designated as the biligual city ‘where foreigners can own land and run schools and hospitals, and where companies can get relief from Korean taxes and bureaucracy’. Cortese, “An Asian Hub in the Making.”
17. Brooke, “Korea Hopes.” Holbrooke, chairman of the Asia Society said about the project, ‘It is Korea's challenge to Pudong. Can Korea challenge Shanghai?’ Brooke, October 10, 2004.
18. Kasarda and Lindsay, Aerotropolis, 355. A typical block size is 70 meters by 90 meters.
19. Their, “How Asia Is Paving the Way.”
20. Zach, “New Songdo City.”
21. “Nation Building by Design: SOM in China.” SOM Brochure, http://www.som.com/books/SomInChina.html.
22. Ren, Building Globalization, 13. See also, Bae, “Governing Cities Without States?” 95.
23. Sun, “The Institutional and Political Background,” 25.
24. Park, Urban and Development Axis in China, 323. The overall plan for the TBNA started from 1994, which then entered into the second phase of development in 2005.
25. Developed along the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu expressway, this conurbation becomes high-tech and IT industry clusters and reaches the lower deltas of the River. TEDA, “Development of Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA).”
26. Tanggu CBD area is located to the south of existing TEDA (Tanggu Economic–Technological Development Area, designated in 1984). TEDA has existed for 28 years and includes four other major districts: Jiefanglu Business and Retail District that connect old Tanggu CBD to the north, the Taku Residential District to the south, Xiangluowan Commercial District to the west and Lanjiadao Park District to the east. The last two districts are across the Haihe River. Tianjin Binhai New Area CBD. Accessed July 12, 2012. www.tjbhcbd.gov.cn.
27. The competition had two phases. The initial phase was held in 2007 and the second phase in 2008 with seven months of competition adjustment and consultancy. The master plan was ready in the summer of 2008. See Enorth, “Tianjin will spend 10 years to develop Yujiapu into a financial innovation base.” For the area of 3.44 square kilometres, these competitions required designing 500,000 square metres of financial and commercial space. Competitions, “Urban Design Competition.”
28. This reminds us of the block system applied to New Songdo City where high-rise residential towers are placed in low- to mid-rise commercial buildings facing the streets. This design strategy is to generate compact streets outside as well as landscaped courts inside.
29. “Nation Building by Design: SOM in China.” SOM Brochure.
30. For Wharf, see Kriken et al. City Building, 67. See also Fainstein, The Just City, 116. In relation to critique of the global city, see Massey, World City, 32.
31. A carbon reduced, pollution-free ecological city is framed in the collective goals of the development. These include not only merely applying state-of-the-art construction technologies, but also employing concrete methods like the American LEED standard. In 2010, APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) designated the Yujiapu Financial District as the model case for sustainable development. Nikken Sekkei Research Institute, APEC Low Carbon Model Town (LCMT) Project, Tianjin Yujiapu Feasibility Study, Final Report (Tokyo: Nikken Sekkei Research Institute, 2011). See also APEC, “APEC Launches Test-case.”
32. High-rise development on the Yujiapu peninsula includes 122 office towers and another 48 towers are currently under construction in the Xiangluowan Commercial District across the Hahei River.
33. Danish architectural firm, Bjarke Ingles Group, designed the Rose Rock International Financial Centre (600m). The building construction started in December, 2011. “Great Investment Potential of Yujiapu Financial District Displayed at 2012 MIPIM Asia.” PRnewswire, November 8, 2012. Accessed January 2, 2013. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/great-investment-potential-of-yujiapu-financial-district-displayed-at-2012-mipim-asia-177847791.html.
34. Ren, Building Globalization, 40, 69, 177.
35. Appadudrai, Modernity at Large, 34.
36. Liauw, “New Urban China,” 122.
37. Pridmore, Shanghai, the Architecture, 10.
38. The so-called 1-9-6-6- model envisions 1 central city as the service centre, 9 decentralized key towns, 60 small towns and 600 villages. Hartog, Shanghai New Towns, 18, 28.
39. The use of ‘urban field’ is borrowed from John Friedman's ‘multi-centric urban field’ that frames Chinese major delta urban areas. Friedman, China's Urban Transition, 36. Likewise, Allen Scott also conceptualized the ‘global city region’. Scott, Social Economy of the Metropolis, 131.
40. Liauw, “New Urban China,” 12; Hartog, Shanghai New Towns, 34.
41. Li, “Lingang New Town,” China Economic Net, May 11, 2006. Accessed January 13, 2012. http://en.ce.cn/Insight/200605/11/t20060511_6921341.shtml.
42. von Gerkan et al., Ideale Stadt – Reale Projekte (Ideal City – Real Project), 42.
43. One taxi driver said it would take 20 minutes to circle the innermost ring road abutting Dishui Lake and drive back to where he started. (In actuality it took less, as there was not a single car to be seen on the road.) Interviewed by author, February 27, 2012.
44. von Gerkan et al., Ideale Stadt – Reale Projekte, 69.
45. Connected to the lakeside promenade, the Main Square on the west-east axis serves as a monumental entry to the city. Konsorski-Lang and Hampe, The Design of Material, 93.
46. Low-rise buildings will form street facades, mainly in European style, while public buildings can be raised to about 100 metres high, creating a hierarchy of city profile. “City Style.” Accessed December 5, 2012. http://www.shharborcity.com/english/lingang-3.asp. The squares and public parks are modelled after renowned harbour cites, such as the ancient city of Alexandria with its rounded sea walls and the monumental lighthouse, while the urban waterfront is sampled from the designer's hometown, Hamburg, Germany. Konsorski-Lang and Hampe, The Design of Material, 90.
47. Kaika, City of Flow, 19.
48. The waterways within the super blocks (720 metres by 720 metres) borrow the names of the great rivers, for example, Mississippi, Ganges, Wolga and Yangtze. Konsorski-Lang and Hampe, The Design of Material, 93. Hartog, Shanghai New Towns, 178.
49. Campanella, The Concrete Dragon, 287.
50. Herry den Hartog wrote that current residency amounts to 200,000. Hartog, Shanghai New Towns, 172. However, when I visited the city on 8 December 2012, I could rarely find a crowd that matched this number of people – almost all the streets were empty.
51. Wáng, “The Lingang New City is now called, the Nanhui New City,” the Jiěfàng Daily News, April 30, 2012. Accessed January 11, 2013. http://sh.sina.com.cn/news/s/2012-04-30/1028215923.html. The first phase (2005–2010) covers 22 square kilometres built on 296.6 square kilometres reclaimed land on the eastern seaboard. “Investment Environment,” National-Level Minhang Development Zone Lingang Park. Accessed January 2, 2013. http://lingang.smudc.com/english/Guide.htm.
52. Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, 444.
53. Busbea, Topologies, 116.
54. Connell, “Korea's High-Tech Utopia.”
55. Ibid.
56. Smith, City, 301.
57. Rabinovitch, “Yujiapu Points to China's Growth Risk.”
58. Hassenpflug, The Urban Code of China, 138. For pastoral modernity, see Heynen, Architecture and Modernity, 13.
59. Roy and Ong, Wording Cities, 16.
60. In the Fourth United Nations World Urban Forum held in Nanjing, the presentations from the Chinese delegates were mostly ‘scientific’ rather than social, concentrating very much on technical solutions of energy and environmental concerns. See Helen Castle's interviews with Peter Head in Liauw, New Urban China, 69.
61. Ibid.
62. Interviewed by the author, January 30, April 13.
63. For opponents' view on mega-scale Modernist projects, see Sadler, The Situationist City, 49.
64. Zach, “New Songdo City.”
65. Whitman et al., “New Songdo City,” 422.
66. Pollock, “New Songdo City,” 62.