The recent crisis in the UK steel sector has meant that many industry commentators are speculating that UK manufacturing is in dire straits. As a result of this, and pressures from the post 2007 financial environment, many companies are outsourcing manufacturing overseas. However, relinquishing control leads to product quality that drops in line with costs.

South Korea has created what has been hailed as the first true smart city. The city of Songdo has been built from scratch on 1,500 acres of reclaimed land near the country’s capital, Seoul, and provides residential, commercial and retail services with an “unrivalled smart infrastructure”. This sets a high standard for the smart city movement and raises questions about how much retrofitting existing cities need to do to keep up. ...