AN ARTICLE “SUSTAINABLE METROPOLIS” WRITEN BY GREG LINDSAY DESIGNED BY PETER VERASTEGUI
Sustainable Metropolis
NEW SONGDO The world is bracing for an influx of billions of new urbanities in the coming decades, and tech companies are rushing to build new grzeen cities to house them. Are these companies creating smarter metropolis-or just making money?
BY GREG LINDSAY
2 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
Hot, Flat, Soon Crowded: New Songdo City, South Korea, takes shape on what was once the Yellow Sea. In the foreground, its Central Park, modeled on Manhattan’s.
Architecture and Design | 3
Stan Gale is exultant. The chairman of Gale International yanks off his tie, hitches up his pants, and mops the sweat and floppy hair from his brow. He’s beaming like a proud new papa, sprung from the waiting room and handing out cigars to whoever happens by. Beckoning me to follow, he saunters across eight lanes of traffic towards his baby, delivered prematurely three days before. Ten years ago, Gale was a builder and flipper of office parks who would eventually become known for knocking down the Boston Landmark Filene’s Basement and replacing it with a hole in the ground. But Gale’s fate began to change in 2001 with a phone call from South Korea. The Korean government had found his firm on the Internet and made an offer everyone else had refused. The brief: Gale would borrow $35 billion from Korea’s banks and its biggest steel company, and use the money to build from scratch a city the size of downtown Boston, only taller and denser, on a muddy man-made island in the yellow sea. When Gale arrived to see the site, it was miles of open water. He signed anyway.
4 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
New Songdo City won’t be finished until
disaster: grandiose, monstrously over
to one another, designated as such years
2015 at least, but in August, Gale cut the
scale, and immediately encircled by slums.
before IBM found its “Smarter Planet” religion.
ribbon on the 100-acre “Central Park”
New Songdo has to be better because
Being seriously ahead of the curve
modeled, like so much of the city, on
there’s a lot more ridding on it than wheth-
explains why Gale had such a hard time
Manhattan’s. Climbing on all sides will be
er Gale can repay his loans. It has been
finding a tech partner this dream frustra-
a mix of low-rises and sleek spires-condos,
hailed since conception as the experimen-
tion. First in line was LG, one of Korea’s
offices, even South Korea’s tallest build-
tal prototype community of tomorrow. A
homegrown conglomerates. None of
ing, the 1,001-foot Northeast Asia Trade
green city, it was LEED-Certified from
its ideas had made it past the proto-
Tower, Strolling along the park’s canal,
the get-go, designed to emit third of the
type stage. Next up was Microsoft, which
we hear cicadas buzzing, saws whining,
greenhouse gases of a typical metropolis
signed a deal giving it carte blanche to
and pile drivers pounding down to bed-
its size (about 300, 000 people during the
mold the city in its image. “Designing an
rock. I asked whether he’s stocked the
day). It’s an “international business district”
entirely new city from the ground up pro-
canal with fish yet. “It’s four days old!” he
and an “aerotropolis”- as Western-oriented
vides an unique opportunity to create
splutters, for-getting he isn’t supposed to
city more focused on the airport and China
rest until the seventh.
beyond than on Seoul. And it’s supposed to
As far as playing God (or SimCity)
be a “smart city,” studded with chips talking
goes, New Songdo is the most ambitious instant city since Brasilia 50 years ago. Brasilia, of course, was an instant
Architecture and Design | 5
International Plaza is one
an ideal technological infrastructure,”
United Technologies (UTC), and the archi-
of Songdo International
Bill Gates boasted. But before her could
tects of Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) to enter
Business District's high-
even measures for drapes, Gale decifvded
the instant-city business. At a Cisco event
concept, Rockefeller
a plumber would be a better fit and threw
near New Songdo last summer, Gale
Center-inspired complexes.
Microsoft over for Cisco.
stunned the room by announcing plans to
6 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
Last spring, the networking giant
eventually roll out 20 cities across China
became New Songdo’s exclusive supplier
and India, using New Songdo as a tem-
of digital plumbing. Mowwre than simply
plate. In the spirit of Moore’s Law, he says,
installing routers and switches-or even
each will be done faster, better, cheaper,
something so banal as citywide Wi-Fi-
year after year.
Cisco is expected to wire every square
Cisco calls this Smart Connected
inch of the city with synapses. From the
Communities initiative a potential $30 bil-
trunk lines running beneath the streets to
lion opportunity, a number based not only
the filaments branching to every wall and
on the revenues from installations of the
fixture, it promises this city will “run on
basic infrastructure but also on selling the
information.” Cisco’s control room will be
consumer-facing hardware as well as the
New Songdo’s brain stem.
services layered on top of that hardware.
And that’s just the beginning. No
Picture a Cisco-built digital infrastructure
longer content to sell just plumbing, the
wired to Cisco’s TelePresence videocon-
company is teaming up with Gale, 3M,
ferencing screens mounted in every home
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and office, with engineers listening, learning and releasing new Cisco-branded bandwidth-hungry services in exchange for modest monthly fees. You’ve heard of software as a service? Well, Cisco intends to offer cities as a service, bundling urban necessities–water, power, traffic, telephony–into a single, Internet-enabled utility, taking a little extra off the top on every resident’s bill. “We have the hardware in place and what we need now is the software,” Gale beseeched the Cisco execs in in New Songdo. “It’s going to be a cool city, a smart city We start from here and then we are going to built 20 new cities like this one, using this blueprint. Green! Growth! Export!” Jaws dropped. “China alone needs 500 cities the size of New Songdo,” Gale tells me. And he has already done the deal to build the next two.
The facts China doesn’t need cool, green, smart cities. It needs cities, period—500 New Songdos at the very least. One hundred of those will each house a million or more transplanted peasants. In fact, while humanity has been building cities
“Cities are becoming unsettled,” warns
future, rather than being made out of
for 9,000 years, that was apparently just
Saskia Sassen, the Columbia University
glass and steel ... [will be] instead large-
a warm-up for the next 40. As of now,
sociologist who’s the leading expert on cit-
ly constructed out of crude brick, straw,
we’re officially an urban species. More
ies’ collision with globalization. “They will
recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap
than half of us—3.3 billion people—live
be the sites of new wars—wars for water,
wood.” In many places, they already are.
in a city. Our numbers are projected to
for a clean environment, and not to men-
It was this crushing demographic trend
nearly double by 2050, adding roughly
tion room for some 700 million people
that drew Cisco into the instant-city busi-
a New Songdo a day; the United Nations
displaced by climate change.” Sociologist
ness. Gale first approached Cisco CEO
predicts the vast majority will flood smaller
Mike Davis prophesied in his apocalyp-
John Chambers five years ago, “but we
cities in Africa and Asia.
tic Planet of Slums that “the cities of the
weren’t ready,” says Wim Elfrink, Cisco’s
8 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
Cultural roots, New Songdo's Central Park fuses traditional motives of Korean culture with their new eco-friendly, technological side.
chief globalization officer. It wasn’t until
to establish a Saudi Silicon Valley, one
these cities began opening last year, but
2006, after former President Bill Clinton
designed to create a million-plus jobs and
none are as far along as New Songdo.
challenged the company to act on climate
increase non-oil GDP by almost 50% in
While the developing world wres-
change, that it started thinking of build-
barely a decade. These “economic cit-
tles with its impending population boom,
ing smarter cities. “Now,” Elfrink says,
ies” were explicitly intended to house and
the entire world is confronting an explo-
“we’re in catch-up mode.” Two years
employ nearly half of the 10 million Saudis
sion of another sort: climate change.
ago, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin
under the age of 17—a largely uneducat-
The battle against global warming will
Abdulaziz charged Cisco with helping to
ed workforce described as a “human time
be fought in city streets. The world’s 20
plan four new cities around the country,
bomb.” Cisco’s job, improbable as it may
largest megacities consume a stagger-
at a total cost of $70 billion. The aim was
seem, was to help defuse it. The first of
ing 75% of its energy. Buildings alone
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This 5-million-square-foot development is located on the western edge of Central Park, the main open space of the City.
contribute 15% of all greenhouse gas-
to watch a football game without being
That Cisco is staking so much on
es, more than all forms of transportation
exhorted by IBM to “build a smarter
a mudflat in the Yellow Sea is a reflec-
combined (13.5%). Barring simultaneous
planet.” And it’s true that even a rela-
tion of Chambers’s grand plan to move
breakthroughs in a raft of clean tech-
tively simple retrofit of existing cities can
beyond the sale of routers and switches.
nologies—including solar cells, biofuels,
make a substantial dent in emissions. In
His lieutenants are busy chasing as many
and batteries—the fastest way to shrink
Stockholm, a high-tech congestion-pric-
as 30 different billion-dollar opportuni-
cities’ carbon footprints is through con-
ing scheme that IBM helped implement
ties, or what he calls “adjacencies.” New
servation and efficiency. Unlike Walmart,
has increased tax revenue by $80 million
Songdo is where several of them intersect.
which has a real-time glimpse into every
while reducing traffic and CO2 by 18%.
“We used to be a plumber,” Chambers
store, truck, and warehouse in its system,
An IBM smart-grid test in Washington
tells me at Bill Clinton’s latest confab in
cities are nearly impossible to parse. But
State concluded peak loads might be
New York. “And we were proud to be a
hook them up to the right mix of sensors
trimmed enough nationwide to eliminate
plumber. It’s a very honorable profession
and software, the thinking goes, and who
the need for 30 coal-fired power plants
and we made a lot of money doing it. But
knows what efficiencies might suddenly be
over 20 years.
now we’ve moved from plumbing to being
revealed? When buildings, power lines,
“Everything can be connected and
the platform for innovation througout the
gas lines, roadways, cell phones, residen-
everything can be green,” promises Elfrink,
globe. And instead of taking the typical
tial systems, and so on are able to taZlk to
who calculates that in addition to creating
approach that most high-tech companies
one another, that information can expose
millions of jobs, the smartening up of cities
have taken, which is to sell stand-alone
patterns of waste and ways to avoid it. Just
could reduce emissions worldwide by 15%
products and maybe think about how they
as wiring corporations made them lean-
over the next decade, saving a ton of CO2
tie together,” Cisco is “filling a void in the
er and meaner, wiring cities may be one
per person and nearly a trillion dollars. Now
industry, where we’re providing both the
way to tease efficiency out of dumb net-
the idea of spreading the smart-grid mar-
technology architecture” and the vision to
works like the power grid.
ket alone “may be bigger than the whole
governments for “how you use this tech-
Internet,” Chambers has said.
nology to change societies.”
For the last year, it’s been impossible
10 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
should slow it down. But you can’t stop
that means wiring cities from the ground
it. It’s not a curse—it’s an opportunity.”
up. IBM has chosen the unlikely venue of
It certainly looks like an opportunity
Dubuque, Iowa (population: 60,000), for
if you’re a technology company. A flur-
its prototype, which is consistent with its
ry of white papers has been issued by
more limited approach of retooling estab-
the likes of HP, Autodesk, Oracle, and
lished cities, mostly in the West. Cisco is
Cisco on topics including “Digital Cities,”
hoping to prove its model by embedding
“City 2.0,” “Intelligent Urbanisation,” and
its technology in instant cities across the
even a “Central Nervous System for the
developing world. In addition to King
Earth.” The market is so new that no one
Abdullah’s, there is Qatar’s Energy City
can pinpoint the exact size of what’s at
and India’s Gujarat International Finance
stake. The best guess, offered by the
Tec-City, known by the all-too-appropri-
research firm IDC, pegs the smart-infra-
ate acronym, GIFT. Six others are already
structure business at $122 billion over the
planned. Elfrink estimates that at least
Smart City
next two years. A better answer may be:
$500 billion will be earmarked for instant
“How much have you got?” Governments
cities over the next decade, with $10 billion
Just a few years ago, smart cities were
are looking to cash $3 trillion in stimulus
to $15 billion allotted for network plumb-
seen as Blade Runner or Minority Report
checks, and behind that comes an esti-
ing alone. Cisco hopes to pocket another
warmed over. Whatever guises they
mated $35 trillion in global infrastructure
$15 billion from the services running atop
took—from “digital homes” to “ubiqui-
spending over the next two decades.
these systems, marketed to residents and
tous computing”—it seemed no one really
The near-term strategy of tech firms
mayors alike, starting with smart grids and
wanted the questionable convenience of
appears to be, Tap available pools of sgtim-
meters. “The first phase will be very sim-
videophones or Internet-enabled fridges.
ulus funds to pilot a smart grid here and a
ple,” he says, “because people will spend
“It’s more pragmatic now, because the
smart sewer there. Sooner or later, some-
money to save money.”
overriding agenda is sustainability,” Elfrink
one will need to pull it all together, and
Cisco itself has spent a great deal of
insists over breakfast in New Songdo last August. Fluting in a pronounced Dutch accent, Elfrink, in town for the opening of the Incheon Global Fair & Festival, an ersatz expo held in New Songdo’s honor, is comfortable switching from anthropology to technical minutiae in midsentence. He spearheads strategy for Cisco from the company’s Bangalore campus and also runs its $7 billion services unit. “I was a keynote speaker at the United Nations Habitat conference in Delhi a few weeks ago,” he says. “They fought urbanization for years, because they thought they
Computer rendenring of the city, which is planned to be finish by the year 2015.
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Use of Electricity in Office Buildings NEW SONGDO 65 Billion KWh 65 billion KWh of site electricity each year, The mayority of the electricity used at this building is used for lighting.
NEW YORK 198 Billion KWh 198 billion KWh of site electricity each year, The
mayority of the electricity used at this building is used for lighting and office equipments.
12 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
“ In addition to creating millions of jobs, smartening up cities could reduce emissions worldwide by 15% over the next decade, saving a ton of CO2 per person and nearly a trillion dollars.”
and cities. Imagine a wall-mounted flat screen, crowded with TelePresence calls, smart-meter readouts, and whatever else Cisco has to offer. How does $5 a month for a daily consultation from your toilet
money acquiring the tools it hopes will
But on the ground last summer, Elfrink was
sound? “I would love to have nutritional
lock in first-mover advantage. What is
audibly more excited by the prospect of
advice first thing in the morning,” Elfrink
now Smart+Connected Communities
a Boston-size sandbox for TelePresence,
says earnestly. “Is TelePresence going to
was announced a year ago following
Cisco’s fastest-growing business. On
be the next iPhone? I don’t know, but you
the purchase of Richards-Zeta Building
opening day of the Incheon fair, he cuts
can dream that big.”
Intelligence, whose software links buildings
the ribbon on his company’s pavilion with
In this way, Cisco seems to be moving
over the Internet, for an undisclosed sum.
great fanfare, ushering guests inside for
beyond smart cities’ sustainability mission
The cities-as-a-service piece was added
a glimpse of what’s to come. Although a
and into something close to social engi-
through an investment in an Australian
few demos dutifully depict turning down
neering. Ironically, this souped-up vision
startup called Majitek. Together, they will
the entire city’s thermostat, the two-way
is what a smart city used to mean—and
integrate the babel of proprietary sys-
video screens are the stars of the show.
why no one wanted to live in one. People
tems created by the likes of Honeywell,
In one scene, actors posing as doctor
weren’t interested in appliances talking
UTC, and Johnson Controls to heat, cool,
and patient conduct a dramatized remote
amongst themselves, and they didn’t want
and power modern office blocks. And if
checkup. “The killer app,” Elfrink tells me,
to run the risk of their houses needing a
Cisco’s $3.4 billion bid for Tandberg goes
“will be TelePresence. If you want to talk to
reboot. Tech executives called their disin-
through, it will instantly propel Cisco to
your neighbors or book a table at a res-
terest a failure of “education” rather than
No. 1 in the videoconferencing market,
taurant, you can do it via TelePresence.”
a display of customers’ common sense.
pairing Tandberg’s desktop screens with
Or you can attend class at New Songdo’s
Cisco hopes to get around this problem
Cisco’s room-size TelePresence models
International School. Or practice yoga
in New Songdo by eventually installing
and possibly the set-top boxes from its $7
with your yogi. Or work from home, as
TelePresence in every apartment whether
billion purchase of Scientific Atlanta. In the
Elfrink often does in Bangalore.
residents want it or not. The assumption is
meantime, Elfrink and his deputies have
Seen from Cisco’s perspective, howev-
wooed mayors, recruited experts, court-
er, it’s all kinds of green. Installing screens
ed governments, and worked alongside
and smart appliances in every home and
“The money pumped into economies
KPF’s architects, 3M’s scientists, and
office all but guarantees demand for
under the guise of recovery packages,
UTC’s engineers to marry new energy-
the fattest pipes and biggest switches,
that’s the opportunity they’re trying to
efficient materials and technologies with
and establishes Cisco as the gatekeep-
seize,” says Andrea Di Maio, a Gartner
the urban Internet he envisions.
er between that underlying plumbing and
public-sector analyst. Di Maio skepti-
every service built on top. Cisco and Gale
cally notes that none of these would-be
will own the core of New Songdo’s con-
master builders have developed new
sumer and metropolitan services, inviting
technologies from scratch. Instead they’re
Elfrink and Cisco’s official mission in New
third-party developers to fill in the gaps
bolting together what they have on hand
Songdo is sustainability—“from a social,
in exchange for a slice of each transac-
and calculating the carbon savings that
environmental, and business point of view.”
tion—think Apple’s App Store for homes
result. “Scratch the surface, and you start
Cisco's Contributions
that folks will quickly learn to love it. Build it, apparently, and they will come.
Architecture and Design | 13
ONE OF THE WORLDS GREENEST AND MOST WELCOMING CITIES Songdo IBD has been designated with 40% open space Open spaces and public gathering areas are arranged to optimize access to sunlight views, open sky, and to maximize the connection to nature within the city for residents, workers and visitors.
14 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
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views of the landmark Incheon Bridge. Unlike the hyper-chaos of Korea’s other major cities, cobbled together over centuries of growth, Songdo is an ambitious exercise in 21st-century urban planning, a completely new city built upon land reclaimed from the sea, blessed with wide boulevards, pleasant parks and inspired architecture.
16 | The Rice of a New Metropolis
“ Cisco is “filling a void in the industry, where we’re providing both the technology architecture” and the vision to governments for “how you use this technology to change societies.” to wonder just how coherent this strategy
“we have no standards. Every city is a new
really is,” he says.
project, a new process, a new interface,”
“Cities are highly complex systems,
he continues, marveling at the inefficiency.
and one of the elements of highly com-
“You shouldn’t spend time on an eleva-
plex systems is that when you monkey
tor. You shouldn’t spend time on lighting.”
around with them, their predictability
Gale’s timetable is, if anything, too
goes to zero,” says Pip Coburn, a tech-
slow for Elfrink, who expects to sign deals
nology analyst whose book The Change
with an additional half-dozen municipali-
Function argues that the reason so many
ties this year. Because a city in Korea has
technologies fail is because the pain
a different social dynamic than a city in
of changing old habits outweighs any
China, or a city in Brazil.”
benefits. It would be one thing if New
“It’s quality of life as a service,” com-
Songdo were a one-off experiment, but
plains Adam Greenfield, the head of
Gale has assembled his dream team of
user-interface design for Nokia and the
architects and technologists with an eye
author of Everyware, a Ninety-Five Theses
toward cracking the code of urbanism
for ubiquitous computing. “Everything we
itself. “There’s a pattern here, repeat-
think of as organic and emergent in cit-
able,” he tells me. He won’t be content
ies is absent. In Korea, everything is just
until he can standardize and mass-pro-
dropped onto a map. They clear out a
duce his cities in half the time for China.
rice paddy and suddenly it looks like the
Indeed, New Songdo’s first clone will
Upper West Side.”
break ground this year on the outskirts
Greenfield envisions three scenari-
of Changsha, a provincial capital larger
os for Cisco’s smart cities, including New
than Singapore. The Meixi Lake District
Songdo. “One, you install the screens and
will be larger than New Songdo and just
nobody uses them, ever—people are set
as dense, smart, and green—and eerily
in their ways and the technology dies
familiar. This and every subsequent city
from disinterest. Two, there’s some initial
will be standardized around Gale’s part-
uptake, but because you designed the sys-
ners’ products: the same light fixtures,
tem so rigidly, they give up. Three , the
traffic signals, elevators, fuel cells, cen-
best case scenario is that people take it
tral air-conditioners—and TelePresence
up in such way that it is enormously suc-
screens. The scope of his ambitions dove-
cessful, but somehow it has nothing at all
tails neatly with Cisco’s. “We’re trying to
to do with what the planners and strate-
replicate cities,” Elfrink says bluntly, but
gists ever imagined.”
Architecture and Design | 17
WRITEN BY GREG LINDSAY DESIGNED BY PETER VERASTEGUI