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Ubiquitous city: Urban technologies, urban infrastructure and urban informatics

Department of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University, dshin{at}skku.edu

South Korea continues to lead the way in digital opportunity with its recent, innovative and ubiquitous city projects. The u-city initiative in South Korea is a national urban development project that focuses on strengthening the role of information and communication technologies in civic planning and management. This study tracks the changing dynamics driving the information society initiative of South Korea to evaluate the process of design and development of u-city. This study reviews qualitative data related to the u-city projects, describes the transformations and translation of this data in the public, political, and social discourse, and discusses the prospectus of a ubiquitous information society environment. The findings raise fundamental, practical questions about the role of ubiquitous computing in shaping our future cities. The findings show that there are more challenges ahead than prospects, despite the fact that the u-city has all the advanced technological components for a positive development. The South Korean u-city is typically more prone to problems related to the lack of social infrastructure, market restrictions, political quagmires and vested financial interests. The paper discusses the deficiencies of the South Korean approach, namely a lack of holistic approach by integrating technological possibilities with social application needs.

Key Words: urban informatics • ubiquitous city • South Korea

Journal of Information Science, Vol. 35, No. 5, 515-526 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0165551509100832


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