Coping with crises in (post-)developmental urbanization:the case study of Songdo International City, South Korea

This chapter examines the underlying political economy of megaproject promotion during times of post-crisis recovery, using the case study of Songdo International City in Incheon, South Korea. This large-scale urban development project, built on reclaimed land, is widely acclaimed as Korea’s first foreign-led urban development project. However, Songdo should be understood as a conjunctural space where various domestic and foreign actors have interacted to pursue their material goals throughout different historical contexts. In particular, the two economic crises that hit Korea in 1997 and 2008 were significant impetuses that led to shifts in the dynamics among different scalar actors. By investigating the consequences of these two crises on the development of Songdo, this chapter aims to show how various multiscalar urbanization actors engaged in the urban megaproject and how their dynamics shifted over time. In doing so, this chapter illustrates how speculative interests at different scales became dominant in the development process of Songdo International City.