The Greenest Citites Come in a Box
THE SUNDAY TIMES OF LONDON
November 14, 2010
The Greenest Citites Come in a Box
by John Arlidge
Stan Gale's Songdo is intended to be the first of many green communities. John Arlidge investigates.
With his shock of dark hair and rapid-fire New York accent, Stan Gale looks and sounds like a cartoon villain. The people in Boston certainly see the developer as a Dick Dastardly type: he knocked down the city's landmark Filene's building, hoping to rebuild it, but ran out of money, leaving a vast hole in the ground. Travel halfway round the world, however, and things are different. In Seoul, Gale enjoys the kind of reputation previously reserved for Guus Hiddink, the man who guided South Korea to the quarter finals of the World Cup in 2002. Why? It's because he is spending $35 billion (¤26 billion) doing something that will change Korea and might just change the world. Gale, 60, is building the world's most high-tech and greenest city. Songdo, he believes, is the blueprint for dozens of new green cities that will be built across Latin America, Africa, India and China. "We want to crack the code of urbanism, package it ‘in a box' and replicate it," he said.
With emerging economies urbanising at record rates, Gale estimates that the market for his assembly line "insta-cities" could be worth $5 trillion. Analysts estimate China alone needs 500 new Songdo-sized cities to cope with an urban population that will reach 1 billion by 2030. India needs 300. Gale is borrowing $35 billion and chucking in $100m of his own cash to build Songdo, which lies halfway between Seoul's Incheon airport and the capital's downtown area. It covers 1,500 acres - the size of central Manchester - and will have 1,000 buildings when it is finished in about 2015. One third of it has already been built and 12,500 people have moved in. Gale is rushing to complete the rest. He does a lot of rushing - he cycles everywhere at a furious pace, barking orders to whichever of his colleagues and partners can keep up. Brushing a mat of sweaty hair off his forehead on a break between rides, he said: "We gotta make green cities a reality because the alternative is: ‘We're screwed'. The carbon footprint of existing cities, let alone all the new ones that are springing up, is terrifying."
There are plenty of dollars at stake, too. If Gale gets Songdo right, he could be one of the wealthiest green pioneers. "I'm an entrepreneur. Yes, it's about making money," he said. Songdo is the greenest new city in Asia by miles. Some 40% of its area is parkland and waterways. The lakes are purified sea water, drawn straight from the Yellow Sea, to avoid wasting fresh water. There's none of the smog that makes breathing in many Asian cities like inhaling porridge. Electric cars and bicycles have right of way and priority parking. Hydrogenpowered green buses will soon ply the streets. Homes and offices use the latest green technology. Heatsaving glass retains heat in winter. External and internal shading devices, solar panels and low-energy water-cooled air conditioning keep homes cool in summer. High-performance glazing maximises the amount of daylight that enters buildings, reducing the need for artificial lighting. All homes and offices have master switches to turn off air conditioning, heating and electrical appliances - except fridges, freezers and security systems - when they are empty. All water is recycled and re-used for washing, cooling or irrigation. Overall, buildings in Songdo should use 20% less water than conventional buildings and 14% less electricity and heating. Songdo is planned so that key functions - transport, shops, green space, culture - are no more than 12.5 minutes on foot from each other. That's the maximum most people will walk, studies show. Priority cycleways will discourage car use for journeys between 12 and 30 minutes - which covers most of Songdo. For everything else, there is a pool of cars for hire in underground car parks. Gale is also using the latest technology to improve what he calls the "human efficiency" of cities, further reducing emissions.
With Cisco, the American software giant, he is plumbing every square inch with a high-tech communications network. "Everything will be connected - buildings, cars, people, energy," he said. Cisco controllers will use the network to set the heat, lights and electricity to provide just enough in buildings and on the streets. With mobile phones and sensors in cars, buses and trains, Cisco's control room will know exactly where people, cars, buses, trains and bicycles are and, based on previous travel patterns, where they are likely to be heading. Controllers can adjust traffic lights and traffic crossings to cut journey times and pollution. That's if you need to go anywhere at all. There will be video-conferencing facilities in every home, office and school. Plans for new smart cities are often dismissed as science fiction fantasies, and those cities that have been built have not been unalloyed successes.
Gale believes Songdo will be different, thanks to its environmental credentials. If most of the green initiatives he is pioneering work out - and since nobody has tried to build a green city on this scale it remains a very big if - Songdo will emit one-third of the greenhouse gases of a typical metropolis its size and use 30% less fresh water. "That's a big draw for national governments that want to reduce emissions and for ordinary people who want a decent environment in which to live," he said. Will being green be enough? It has to be, says Gale, who has already signed deals to build three more Songdo-style cities at Chongqing, Dalian and Wuxi in China. "We cannot afford it to fail because the global price would be too high."