Sustainable, Smart and Solidary Seoul: Transforming an Asian Megacity

Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
1 Introduction
	1.1 Wicked Problems of Megacity Seoul
	1.2 Urban Pessimism: The LA School and Beyond
	1.3 The Case for Asian Urbanism
	1.4 Asian Urbanism Paragon: Seoul Case Study
	References
Sustainable Seoul
2 Towards Zero Waste and the Circular Economy: Green Governance Remakes Seoul
	2.1 Overview: Seoul’s Green Growth Transformation
	2.2 The Making of a Megacity: Seoul’s Big Boom
	2.3 Drowning in Waste: Trash Mountains on the Han River
	2.4 Going Green: Mounting Pressures for a Seismic Policy Shift
	2.5 Charting a New Course: The Volume-Based Waste Fee (“The Polluter Pays”)
	2.6 Building a Culture of Recycling
	2.7 From Trash Mountains to Green Parks: Restoring Nanjido
	2.8 Seoul’s New Landscape of Environmental Innovation and Green Governance
	2.9 New Horizons: A Circular Economy of Urban Mining and Upcycling
	References
3 Freeway Removal: From Cheonggyecheon to Seoullo 7017
	3.1 Overview: Towards Auto Obsolescence?
	3.2 The Postwar Boom: Paving the Road to Rushed Development
	3.3 Dirty, Congested, and Hot: Expressway Living
	3.4 Daylighting Dreams on the Green Circuit
	3.5 Green Growth: The Bulldozer’s New Developmentalism
	3.6 Benefits of Daylighting: New Life in Old Seoul
	3.7 Cheonggyecheon in Review: Critics and Celebrants
	3.8 Beyond Cheonggyecheon: Seoul’s Green Growth Revolution
	3.9 Can “Green Growth” Be Green?
		3.9.1 Seoul’s Green Transit: Bicycles, EVs, Mass Transit, and Constrained Parking
		3.9.2 The City as Carbon Sink: From Expanding Parks to Rooftop Gardens
		3.9.3 Greening the Skyway: Seoullo 7017
	3.10 From City to Nation: Korea’s Green Growth Embrace
	3.11 Exporting the Model: Korean Green Growth Goes Global
	3.12 Urban Growth and Eco-Damage: The Great Decoupling
	References
Smart Seoul
4 Twenty-One Million Trips a Day: The Seoul Mass Transit Revolution
	4.1 Overview: Seoul’s Mass Transit Culture
	4.2 Strategic Densification
	4.3 Seoul Densification Versus Tokyo Sprawl
	4.4 Why the Buses Run on Time: Planning Better Transit
	4.5 T-Money: One Card to Rule Them All
	4.6 TOPIS: Seoul’s Mass Transit Control Tower
	4.7 A Road Diet and Median Bus Lanes
	4.8 Early Wi-Fi and the 6G Future: Multi-Tasking on Seoul Transit
	4.9 Public Policy and the Creation of a Mass Transit Culture
	References
5 Smart City Seoul: Solving the Urban Puzzle
	5.1 Overview: How Smart Cities Solve COVID
	5.2 The Smart City Fetish and Its Critics
		5.2.1 Optimistic Visions of Smart City Solutions
		5.2.2 Concerns Over Smart Cities: Constant Surveillance, Managerial Control
	5.3 Always-On and Everywhere: Defining the Smart City of Sensors and the Urban Internet of Everything
	5.4 Smart by Design: State-Led Smart City Infrastructure
		5.4.1 “Invest First, Settle Later”: Early State Planning of Korea’s Information Infrastructure
		5.4.2 Toward E-Governance: Seoul’s Online Procedures for Civil Applications Service
		5.4.3 Smart City Pioneer: Instant-City Songdo
		5.4.4 From Songdo Testbed to National Smart City Movement
		5.4.5 SMG Builds Seoul’s Smart City Infrastructure
	5.5 Seoul’s Smart City Solutions: Today
	5.6 Seoul’s Smart City Solutions: Tomorrow
	5.7 Can a Smart City Have Soul?
		5.7.1 A Robotic, Machine-City Metaverse?
		5.7.2 Human Connections and Civic Engagement in Smart City Seoul
	5.8 Building the E-Participation Ladder
		5.8.1 E-Informing and E-Servicing: Seoul Open Data Plaza
		5.8.2 E-Consulting and e-Involvement: The Democracy Seoul Platform
		5.8.3 E-Voting, Participatory Budgeting, and E-Activism of Seoul Smartivists
	5.9 Smart Seoul Goes Global: Exporting the Model
	5.10 How Seoul Became Smart: The Role of Government Leadership
	5.11 Coda: How to Think About Smart Cities
	References
Solidary Seoul
6 Seoul’s Solidarity Economy: From Sungmisan Cooperative Village to the Seoul Social Economy Center
	6.1 Overview: Localizing UN Sustainable Development Goals
	6.2 Developmentalism and Its Discontents
	6.3 Seeds of Social Economy: Seoul’s Sungmisan Cooperative Village
	6.4 The 1997 Crisis: A Critical Juncture for Community Economics
	6.5 From the Bottom Up: A Self-Reliance Alternative
	6.6 The Social Enterprise Promotion Act of 2007
		6.6.1 Village Communities
		6.6.2 Cooperatives
		6.6.3 Worker Cooperatives
		6.6.4 Social Cooperatives
	6.7 Towards a Social Economy Eco-System
		6.7.1 Localization
		6.7.2 Intermediary Organizations
		6.7.3 Capacity Building
		6.7.4 Preferred Procurement
		6.7.5 Social Finance
	6.8 Evaluating the Social Economy
	References
7 Sharing Seoul: Going Global with Sharing Economy Innovations
	7.1 Sharing Cities: Transactional or Transformational?
	7.2 Another World is Possible?
	7.3 Crafting Public Value: SMG Enlivens the Sharing City
	7.4 Seeding the Future: Seoul’s Sharing Economy Takes Root
	7.5 Seoul’s Role in the Global Sharing Movement
	References
8 Conclusion
	8.1 Overview: Showcase Seoul—Global Innovation Leader
	8.2 Changing Political Winds?
	8.3 Seoul’s Enduring Transformations
	References