An Analysis of Seoul Smart City Initiatives
Who is the Seoul Smart City Initiatives for? — An Analysis of Seoul Smart City Initiatives Author: Jong Hee Paik Technical University of Darmstadt “Mundus Urbano” International Cooperation in Urban Development Keywords: Seoul Smart City; Global City; Digital City; U-City
Introduction Since 1990s, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) has planned an IT-based city government in pursuit of systematic management of administrative information, providing convenient information services to the public, and transparency. With the official introduction of ‘e-Government’ in 2002, and the help of rapidly advancing ICT, the government was able to shift from computerized administration system to an automated online administration system. In the beginning, the SMG’s main focus was on informatisation of Metropolitan Seoul; however, over the past decade, SMG’s e-Government has made various efforts to communicate with the public, seeking citizen participation and engagement. One of the early policies for engaging citizen participation is ‘Oasis of 1 Million Imagination’ where citizens have the voices to suggest new policies or give opinions on any policy on a web platform instead of having to go to the City Hall in person. The following table gives an overview of some smart initiatives of SMG that promote communication with the citizens and encourage citizen participation (Table 1). Name (Website)
Description
Oasis of 10 Million Imagination (https://oasis.seoul.go.kr/)
A website where you can give proposals and opinions on policy decision-making process.
KR
Eung-Dap-So (http://eungdapso.seoul.go.kr/)
Citizens' complain and comprehensive advice service center available on mobile app and web.
KR
120 Dasan Call Center (https://www.120dasan.or.kr/)
You can call or text '120' to ask any questions, report complaints, give suggestions to Seoul Metropolitan Government, or receive counselling 24/7. Also available on mobile app and web.
KR, EN, ZH, JA, VI, MN
M-Voting (https://mvoting.seoul.go.kr/)
Mobile voting app where you can vote for policies in your surrounding area.
KR
Seoul Open Data Plaza (https://data.seoul.go.kr/)
A website where you can have access to all public data from the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
KR
Languages
Table 1. Seoul smart citizen participation initiatives (Source: https://seoulsolution.kr/en)
From these initiatives, it is evident that the SMG, by providing such services and platforms, wants citizen participation and engagement in political and administrative procedures. Further, by making these services available on PC and mobile phones, it makes it easier for the citizens to have access to such services. However, as shown in Table 1, only the 120 Dasan Call Center has options available in languages other than Korean. Are these smart city initiatives only for the Korean citizens?
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South Korea has engaged the globalisation trend for decades. However, is it just the tourism industry and international businesses that make a city global? According to Yeonhap News, the number of foreign residents of South Korea has exceeded 2.5 million in 2019, twice the number of 2010, and this accounts for around 5% of the total population. Moreover, around 55% of the foreign population reside in the Seoul Metropolitan and Gyeonggi Area. Amongst the 2.5 million foreigners in South Korea, around 68.8% have registered themselves to reside long-term. This means that around 3-4% of the Seoul Metropolitan Area accounts for foreign residents. In some areas of Seoul and Gyeonggi, over 40% of the residents are foreigners (Kim and Lee, 2018). Moreover, since 1948, with the first case of Taiwanese naturalised as a Korean citizen, there has been over 200k foreigners from 110 countries who have successfully obtained Korean citizenship (Zhang, 2019). In this paper, the status quo of the popularity and user experience of the current smart city initiatives of the Seoul Metropolitan Government will be studied, targeting the foreign population of the Seoul Metropolitan Area. Through this study, the author aims to find out which services or platforms are widely known/used by the foreign residents, the reasons why they use or do not use such services and platforms, and the digital readiness of the foreign residents. Further, this paper will end with some recommendations on the current initiatives.
Methodology This study has been conducted through series of online interviews and surveys. An online survey was created with Google Forms. The link of the survey was shared to foreign residents in Seoul through personal contacts and secondary contacts, as well as posted on Facebook group pages ‘Seoul Expats’ and ‘Seoul Expat Forum’ for a wider range of respondents.
Results and Discussion A total of 33 people have participated the online survey. The respondents come from 17 different countries, all of them are residents of Seoul. Below figures show a general information of the respondents (Figures 1-4).
Figure 1. Gender
Figure 2. Age
Figure 3. Residence period in Seoul
Figure 4. Income
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An Analysis of Seoul Smart City Initiatives
The respondents come from various backgrounds, ranging from student, artist, designer, guide, to English teacher and professor. Most of the respondents have lived in Seoul long-term, some of them have lived in Seoul for over 10 years. Respondents were asked to rate their digital literacy, most of the respondents rated Average or Advanced, as shown in Figure 5. Considering that the survey was made available to them through either online messenger or social network platform, it was apparent that most of them have a good command of digital performance and English.
Figure 5. Digital literacy (self-rated)
Following questions have been asked to observe the popularity of the initiatives mentioned in Table 1. It can be shown in Figure 6 that more than half of the respondents were not even aware of the services available. For those who were aware of any service, many of them have seen an advertisement in a taxi/bus/subway or heard on the news. However, even when they were aware of some of the services, only a small percentage of them have actually used them (Figure 7).
Figure 6.
Figure 7. Jong Hee Paik
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An Analysis of Seoul Smart City Initiatives
Consequently, descriptions of each service/platform were provided to the respondents, and then the following question was asked as shown in Figure 8. The results have shown that three quarters of the respondents have answered that with the newly given knowledge, there is a chance that they might use the mentioned services and platforms. Further, for those who answered ‘no,’ they were asked for the reasons why they would not use them. Some answers include: it will probably be in Korean, s/he is not a citizen and that his/her Korean is not good enough, as a foreigner s/he does not know if s/he can share his/her opinion, and that Korean authorities don’t care about foreigners.
Figure 8.
When the respondents were asked about the current situation in their home country/hometown, around 40% have said that there are similar services in their home country/hometown, and another 40% were not aware if such services existed at all (Figure 9). The respondents were also asked to choose which services/platforms they would want in their home country/home town. It was shown that 120 Dasan Call Center was most popular among the respondents, then M-Voting (Figure 10).
Figure 9.
Figure 10. Jong Hee Paik
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An Analysis of Seoul Smart City Initiatives
The respondents were further asked the reason why they would want such services/platforms in their home country/hometown. Some of the answers that overlapped include for the convenience, for participation in the community and the government, for democracy, and for its usefulness and necessity. Moreover, they were also asked why they would or would not use such mobile app or web platform. Some of the answers for using the services include convenience, easy access, useful, and necessary; for not using the services, answers include lack of interest or need, lack of knowledge of the services/platforms, and that adaption will be a challenge. The statistics show that South Korea has one of the highest smartphone users in the world (Yonhap, 2019). 9 out of 10 South Koreans use a smartphone, this means that almost every adult is a smartphone user. Due to the availability, affordability and accessibility of digital services and economic growth of the country, most residents in Seoul, Korean or foreigner, can afford to own a smartphone and benefit from various services it can provide. However, for foreign residents, although they do have the digital capacity to use services provided on mobile apps and web platforms, it was observed that most of the services were only available in Korean. Although a substantial part of the expat community in Seoul do have the capability of the Korean language, it was hinted that they feel the wall between the Koreans and the foreigners. One of the respondents said that “the Korean authorities do not care about foreigners” and many of the respondents pointed out that those services are probably in Korean. For those whose Korean is not fluent, it will be difficult for them to be involved and to communicate with the local municipality. Another observation made is that the residents seem to be more accepting with the 120 Dasan Call Center, a phone service, than any other online platform. This can be due to the fact that the people are more used to a making a phone call over using an app or a website, or it can be that they prefer voice communication over online, or it can also be because such phone service is available 24/7 and it gives an instant response. Moreover, 120 Dasan Call Center was the only service available in multiple languages, as well as sign-language and hearing-impaired services through video chat. The reason this service is available in other foreign languages might also be in order to give information to the tourists in the city. Furthermore, the role of advertisement could have played a major role, since most of the respondents who were aware of 120 Dasan Call Center have seen an advertisement in their daily lives.
Conclusion Seoul Metropolitan Government’s approach of e-Government in an attempt to make Seoul a smart city has been a rewarding journey. SMG is proud to present its successful results to the world and share the know-hows. As the SMG shifted its focus from establishing ICT infrastructure in the early stages to a citizen-focused approach seeking citizen participation and engagement, various policies and initiatives have been introduced. In this paper, the status quo of the popularity and user experience of some of the current smart city initiatives have been studied through online interviews and surveys, with a focus on the foreign residents of Seoul. Overall, it showed positive responses towards the smart city initiatives from the users; however, due to the lack of availability in other languages and mistrust in the Korean authorities, some of the foreign residents were hesitant to use the services or platforms. Moreover, it was inferred that not enough efforts from the SMG were put into in advertising such services and platforms, since many of the residents were not even aware of them. Therefore, with the availability of other language options and more efforts in advertisement, mentioned smart city initiatives can be more effectively practiced and accepted by not only the Korean citizens, but also the foreign residents of Seoul.
Recommendations Due to limitations of online interviews and surveys, the younger and older generations who do not own a smartphone were not considered in this study. For future research, it is recommended to conduct face-to-face interviews, and also conduct interviews and surveys in other languages. Jong Hee Paik
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References Eung-Dap-So. http://eungdapso.seoul.go.kr/ 120 Dasan Call Center. https://www.120dasan.or.kr/ Kim, Hyejin, and Jawon Lee. 2018. “Residential Distribution of Immigrants in Seoul Metropolitan Area.” Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology 8 (1): 527–38. https://doi.org/10.21742/AJMAHS.2018.01.17. M-Voting. https://mvoting.seoul.go.kr/ Oasis of 10 Million Imagination. https://oasis.seoul.go.kr/ Seoul Open Data Plaza. https://data.seoul.go.kr/ Seoul Solution https://seoulsolution.kr/en Yonhap News, 2019. "S. Korea tops smartphone penetration rate in 2018: report.” Yonhap News Agency, May 2, 2020. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20190206001200325 Yonhap News, 2020. “Number of foreign residents in Korea tops 2.5 million.” Yonhap News Agency, May 2, 2020. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200217003000315 Zhang, S., 2019. Joongang Ilbo, May 2, 2020. https://news.joins.com/article/23668529
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Annex 1
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Annex 2
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