When we decided to write a book about smart city development in Seoul, it was mainly because we were interested in the topic and we felt that the story deserved a wider audience. What has surprised us is how many details of the book launch process have proven to be very meaningful. One of these moments came about recently when I received photos of our book at the Odell Public Library in my father’s hometown of Odell, NE.
One of the questions people ask me on a regular basis is why I am interested in South Korea. The answer to this question is long and involves many, many people who have influenced me and inspired me over the years but I would say it all started in 1964. That was a few years before I was born, when my father was a young firefighter in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was a farm kid who loved reading and dreamt of getting out to see the world. When the draft was reinstated in the United States in 1964 he was sent to a base in Texas for training and assigned to a firefighting unit. I found some of his letters from that time and he really enjoyed this work, he found it exciting. Then came news that he was assigned to Daegu, South Korea and he was overjoyed. He was finally going to travel abroad.
To make a long story short, he was in for a rude awakening. He saw the remnants of society torn apart by civil war and caught in the cruel process of rebuilding both the physical space and the concept of the nation. He didn’t know he was witnessing the beginning of the greatest economic miracle* of our time. He didn’t know either how much his Korean experience would echo through his family for generations to the point that South Korea has become a place of significance for our family. He just wanted to fight fires, see the world and get the latest news on how the Cornhuskers were doing.
So to come back to the question about why I wrote about South Korea, part of it is because the story of smart city development in South Korea is so interesting and it can serve as a great model for other cities and regions that are looking to turn the corner from high growth to smart, organized development. But I think part of the story is also because I grew up hearing about South Korea. The stories were not always great but it was clear that South Korea had changed my father and not only how he viewed himself but how he viewed the world. I grew up hearing these stories and learning that South Korea is an important place and I can’t help but think that my love-at-first-sight reaction to the country during my first visit in 2003 was framed by my father’s experiences in the 1960s.
Today Seoul is a city people dream to visit, much like Paris was when I was growing up, so I love the idea that someone in my father’s hometown of Odell, Nebraska can go to the library and pick up our book and dream of Seoul in 2024. In his wildest dreams, Private First Class Shalla would never have dreamed how his experience would come full circle in the next generation.
*I used the word “miracle” because people call it that but it wasn’t a miracle, it was laser-focused leadership that built up the economy on the hard work and sacrifice of the people.
smartcityperspectives.com 