Urban Competitiveness, U-City Strategies and the Development of Technological Niches in Songdo, South Korea

This chapter is concerned with the recursive conflation between the concept of city competitiveness in ICT and different versions of the “knowledge city” concept based on ICT and digitalization, often responsible for ambiguous political discourses and unclear local economic development strategies. To overcome this problem, the chapter distinguishes both concepts, indentifies links between them and illustrates a way through which national and local polices can support ICT-related city competitiveness and knowledge city strategies: the development of innovation arenas. The chapter illustrates these notions with the case of the on-going development of the Songdo district in Incheon (South Korea), its competences in ubiquitous computing and the connection between this technological prowess with the ambitions of creating one of the first and most advanced “u-cities” in the world.