After 30 years later of Korea’s rapid growth
As a starter for my blog entries, I would like to share a story about my home country. Korea has had the most rapid change in urban planning as well as economic. Besides the notion of urban planning shifted drastically in the last few decades.
I have physically experienced those dramatic changes, seeing my hometown developed, and especially, my childhood ice rink. The ice rink used to be a farmland from spring to fall, but the agricultural water would turn it into an ice rink in winter. I remember that all the fields and houses in the town were demolished and redeveloped; new city with superblocks and full of high-rise apartments were built up only in a few years.
Apartments have a short history in Korea as the first construction was in the 1970s. however, it became the most popular type of Korean property in the 2000s. A presidential candidate proposed 2 million housing constructions to tackle a housing shortage problem in Korea, called the Development Boom.
Image 1. Before (1991) & After (1995) of one of the 1st New-City, Korea
How 20,000 houses could possibly be built up in such a short timeframe?
Korean government borrowed the idea of modernist architecture for making the city efficient and quickly. The density of the central district was increased and districts were divided into automobile-centered roads to form a superblock. In particular, high-rise flat buildings, called apartments, were used as modules without considering the context of the place, so they matched well with those demands at the time when they wanted to create a new city in a short period of time.
The new-city plan from 1989 to 1996 was even completed faster than they originally planned. The plan was to build 5 new cities near Seoul the capital. Long story short, all the playgrounds I grew up with and my friends’ houses were demolished in the New-City plan. It was inevitable as the government had to control a huge population in Seoul, spreading them out to nearby cities. Therefore, apartments were chosen as a quicker option to tackle the issue at hand.
Figure1. Changes in residential households by Dwelling Type (%)
Image 2. Common Type of Properties in Korea
Draw by Gabie
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House
– It is the same type of house as the detached housing found in the UK
– It has its own garage/ outdoor space to park, and some of them have a private yard.
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Row house / Apartment unit (low-rise flat)
– A type of house where two households usually live on each floor but separately.
– These have certain legal standards (e.g., 4th floor or lower).
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Apartments (High-rise flat)
– A typical type of flat where several households live on the same floor, and its stories go over 10 floors.
In contrast, in the United Kingdom, people dislike living in high-rise flats. According to a study performed by the Housing Stock of the United Kingdom Report by BRE Trust (2020, p.9), 27 percent of the respondents chose terraced housing as a preferred dwelling type.
There were five different types of housing in the UK in 2017: terraced housing, semi-detached housing, detached housing, bungalows, and flats. Unlike the UK, Korean housing is categorized into three types of dwellings: houses, units (low-rise flats), and apartments.
Figure 2. Dwelling type by UK nations (%), 2017
The First New-City Plan turned 30 years old this year.
Korean government borrowed the idea of Le Corbusier, the father of modernist architecture, for making the city efficient and quickly. The density of the central district was increased and districts were divided into automobile-centered roads to form a superblock. In particular, high-rise flat buildings, called apartments, were used as modules without considering the context of the place, so they matched well with those demands at the time when they wanted to quickly create a clean city in a short period of time.
The new-city plan from 1989 to 1996 was even completed faster than they originally planned. The plan was to build 5 new cities near Seoul the capital. Long story short, all the playgrounds I grew up with and my friends’ houses were demolished in the New-City plan. It was inevitable as the government had to control a huge population in Seoul, spreading them out to nearby cities. Therefore, apartments were chosen as a quicker option to tackle the issue at hand.
What would be happening if apartments became a means of property speculation, and not a home to live in? The result of these 30 years of demolishing and redeveloping Korean housing has constantly and certainly been affecting us.
List of Figures
Figure 1: Statistics Korea (2020) Population and Housing Census (Register-based Census). Available at: http://kostat.go.kr/assist/synap/preview/skin/miri.html?fn=dd17976750089531095637&rs=/assist/synap/preview (Accessed: 22 October 2021)
Figure 2: BRE Trust (2020) The Housing Stock of the United Kingdom. Available at: https://files.bregroup.com/bretrust/The-Housing-Stock-of-the-United-Kingdom_Report_BRE-Trust.pdf (Accessed: 21 October 2021).
Image 1: https://images.app.goo.gl/gP6rBkuEqw4KJxqU7
Image 2: Draw by Gabie Kim
