Rethinking smart cities in Seoul: Grassroots innovation and urban poverty

Although information and communication technology (ICT) has contributed to the rapid transformation of urban environments, its benefits have not been equally distributed, and urban poor populations have been disadvantaged by government-led smart city initiatives. This imbalance poses significant challenges to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, which aims to promote inclusiveness, safety, resilience, and sustainability in cities and communities. In response to this situation, urban poor communities have pursued grassroots efforts to establish self-sustaining smart city models in solidarity with radical social movements. As evidenced by case studies from Seoul, these communities have developed unique forms of social infrastructure that enhance their autonomy and self-governing capacities, even in constrained environments. This paper sheds light on how grassroots urbanization movements transcend the existing power dynamics and social infrastructure building within government-led smart city frameworks. At the same time, it also discusses the limitations of these alternative approaches. Specifically, it highlights the risk that urban poor communities, as a result of their resistance to smart city approaches that replicate existing redevelopment logics, may be excluded from the benefits of various public and private sector projects. This contradictory situation highlights that building an inclusive smart city goes beyond the equitable distribution of advanced technologies. It emphasizes the importance of encouraging the participation of marginalized urban poor who were previously excluded from urban development, providing critical insights into how to address the emerging inequalities and discrimination in the process of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.