In my previous column, I proposed building large-scale new urban spaces in the greater Seoul area to ease the capital's extreme overcrowding, and establishing new core hubs — super hubs — in the Yeongnam and Honam regions to draw in talent and jobs. These new cities should be designed and operated from the outset around artificial intelligence, as AI future cities. An AI future city aims to be the most innovative and most livable city in the world.
At the heart of an AI future city sits an ontology-based AI platform for running the city. It is an urban operating system that understands and coordinates core elements of the city — from housing and transport to healthcare and care services — in terms of their relationships with one another. It continuously diagnoses the city through data and anticipates residents' needs to deliver services. An AI future city is not built on technology alone. To control the risks of technology and guarantee the rights of residents, a governance structure embodying the principle of citizen sovereignty must be firmly established. Only then does the city fully belong to its citizens.
The framework of a city consists of scale, density and connectivity. A city achieves completeness only when it has a population large enough for both a functioning living area and a self-sustaining economy. The city center and subcenters should be built as high-density mixed-use districts, with parks and green spaces linked into a single network so that people can walk anywhere in the city along the greenery. Density for innovation and breathing room for daily life form a pair. From any station in the city, the central station is 15 minutes away, and the central station of a neighboring city is 15 minutes away by express regional rail. Self-driving shuttles conveniently connect homes to subway stations, and for business trips, urban air mobility from a downtown vertiport carries passengers quickly to the airport.
In this city, culture and the arts flourish, startups and businesses are active, and finance and investment thrive. Talent, companies and capital come together so that the innovation ecosystem runs without friction, consumer and daily-life services are close at hand, and healthcare and care services are fully in place. On streets that are pleasant to walk and full of enjoyment, both innovation and quality of life rise together. When a well-made city is quickly connected to neighboring cities, the gravitational pull of the future city lifts the entire region.
In an AI future city, housing is basic infrastructure. With an ample supply of adequate homes relative to the population, everyone enjoys the right to housing without discrimination. Around prime locations near transit stations, the public sector holds roughly half of the land so that the gains from the city's development return to its residents. The universal public and social housing built on that land allows lifetime residence, so there is no housing insecurity even without buying a home. Residents who want to own a home apply for a presale reservation and receive public presale units in turn. By easing housing costs and commuting burdens and placing care and education close by, this city shows in practice how to resolve the structural challenges of our society — educational gaps, low birth rates and social polarization.
An AI future city in the greater Seoul area begins with location. If it is built within 15 minutes of an existing core hub by public transport, the new city can share much of the spatial benefit and strength of that hub. This is the city where the younger generation will pursue their dreams and start families. To achieve competitiveness on par with existing hubs, a target population of 1.5 million — the scale of a full living area — is worth setting.
An AI future city in the Yeongnam and Honam regions is a far more demanding challenge, since it means building a new core hub from scratch. To function as a global knowledge hub, it must gather 300,000 innovative professionals and offer the incentives and environment that allow talent from around the world to come and settle. It must become an innovation district where dreams become reality upon arriving in Korea and where world-first ventures are possible. To that end, the Yeongnam and Honam super hubs should be designated as city-level special zones, granted autonomy over land use and industrial recruitment through special legislation, and given city-level exemptions covering residency and taxation for foreign talent, creating a regulatory environment distinct from the greater Seoul area.
Real estate issues are urban issues, and building good cities means opening the future of the nation's land. When AI future cities bring innovation and quality of life into bloom across the country, Korea will advance as a great nation led by great cities.