APPENDIX A
SEOUL DIGITAL
MEDIA CITY
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Location: Seoul, Korea
Size: 135 acres (55 hectares)
Dates of Planning and Development: 1994 to the present
Developers: Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Metropolitan Development Corporation
Link: http://dmc.seoul.go.kr/index.jsp
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Vision: To "develop a futuristic info-media industrial
complex that will serve as a centre of information technology
in Northeast Asia."[1]
"The most valuable part of Digital Media City is that it
will become an incubator for developing social capital . . ."[2]
In the late 1990s, the Seoul government first proposed a
project that would capitalise on the status of Korea, with its
rapidly growing multi-media, IT and entertainment industries,
as the world's most wired nation. The Digital Media City (DMC)
aims to promote these industries—as well as companies whose
core business requires the use of information, communication,
and media technologies—to grow and prosper in the global
business environment. The DMC project serves the nation's larger
goals of transitioning from a manufacturing to an innovation economy
and promoting Seoul as an east-Asian hub for commerce. The Seoul
government is using its process for creating the Digital Media
City to spawn partnerships, which in turn will leverage the development
of human and social capital. Rather then being an isolated hub
of high technology in the fields of digital media and entertainment,
the DMC is a major nexus that will feed, and be fed by, the innovation
of more than 10,000 small-scale Internet, game, and telecommunication
firms already located in Seoul.
The new district will be the home of digital media R&D
firms: firms that create cultural material; companies whose core
business benefits from digital media technologies; digital broadcasting
centres; technology-orientated office space; and firms that either
create or provide entertainment. Schools, housing for the affiliates
of international firms, moderate and lower-income housing, commercial
and convention facilities, entertainment zones, and the city's
central rail station are all located in or near the Digital Media
City.
The Digital Media City is part of the larger Millennium City
project in the Sangamdong district of Seoul, four miles (seven
km) from the central business district. Millennium City, conceived
as a new town centre, also encompasses the World Cup Soccer Park,
a major transportation hub, and the restored Nanji-do landfill.
The project's initial funding from the Seoul Metropolitan
Government is being used to leverage the involvement of private
technology partners and developers. The project was planned by
the metropolitan government with the assistance of the Seoul Development
Institute (SDI), a public think tank established by the City of
Seoul, and is being implemented by the development arm of the
City government.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government provided the IT broadband
and wireless networks that serve the area, constructed the infrastructure,
and provided tax incentives and favourably-priced land for the
most desirable tenants. These "magnet" tenants will
attract other firms to the area, because of their business relationships
or because their presence brands the area as a prestige location.
The Korean national government has located several key IT and
cultural agencies within the Digital Media City.
A major feature of the project is Digital Media Street, which
will host entertainment and retail establishments, technology
companies, prestige housing, R&D institutions, and universities.
Digital Media Street is an opportunity to develop and test new
technologies, and to refine them in a living laboratory environment.
The street will mix entertainment and retail uses with technology
companies, incorporating the most advance and interesting digital
urban devices. A permeable realm that blurs the transitional edge
between public and private space will be created by juxtaposing
digital information with physical places. The street will run
smoothly: maintenance operations of light fixtures and utilities
can be controlled digitally, while dynamic street marketing and
sensors will encourage traffic flow. The street will be informative:
interpretative maps and guides will be available on the street
and through mobile phones or other personal devices. The shopping
experience will be flexible: ubiquitous credit sensing will create
stores without check-out lines while "thin shops" will
allow people to feel the goods and order custom products for home
delivery. Finally, the street will be rich and interesting: co-ordinated
digital displays will set the mood for events, while portals to
sister cities will afford glimpses into different places. Technology
will effectively serve and manage, as well as entertain.
1
Seoul Digital Media City. "Development Direction". Back
2
Seoul Metropolitan Government Brochure. "The Gateway
to Tomorrow". Back
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