The displacement of low-income communities, particularly poorer landowners and tenants, was an important factor in bringing economic success to many of South Korea’s cities after the Korean War. Consequently, the South Korean government played a significant role in implementing state-led urban renewal projects that were intended to expand the economic mobility for upper and middle class households. For instance, state-induced gentrification projects during the 1988 Seoul Olympics led to the forced evictions of 720,000 residents, converting Seoul into a corporate city that benefited the upper class. The dramatic socioeconomic changes made over the last four decades of Korea’s history has paved the way for urbanization efforts in order to keep up with the country’s growing economy. As more and more people flock from rural to urban areas in search of new opportunities to increase one’s social mobility, urban populations bloomed, thus prompting the need for expansion and development projects. The capital city of Seoul, in particular, is filled with a booming population that provides economic growth and stability, contributing $13,741 in GDP per capita. However, a flourishing economy and increasing population leads to higher housing prices, limiting the accessibility to affordable housing for low-income communities. In this paper, I will discuss the ways in which state and locally induced gentrification efforts resort to crippling low-income communities, failing to take into consideration other alternatives to combat the displacement of impoverished citizens within Seoul. In order to achieve the objectives for this paper, the paper will be split into three parts. First, I will explain the successes and limitations of the Saemaul Undong in addressing issues concerning redevelopment and gentrification. Second, I will discuss the Joint-Redevelopment Program’s impact in strengthening redevelopment chaebols, providing case study analyses on Mokdong and Sanggyedong. Third, I will elaborate on the impact of the 1988 Olympics on displacing thousands of residents for the sake of beautifying Seoul. Finally, I will present insights on why South Korea’s state-led gentrification policies need to acknowledge the impact of redevelopment initiatives on low-income communities to alleviate the presence of slums and shantytowns. Considering the country’s long and turbulent history regarding redevelopment efforts, it is important to analyze the trends of South Korea’s past in order to prevent gentrification effects from occurring in the future.
During the 1960s of the Park Chung-hee regime, the Saemaul Undong, or New Village Movement, was initiated in order to modernize South Korea and revitalize the physical and mental state of its people. The implementation of Saemaul Undong was successful on rural land reform because the government provided the basic building materials and fixed funds. This also gave the participating villages and neighborhoods autonomy over what needed to be built within their community. 33,267 villages were initially given 35 sacks of cement and other materials, and villages that demonstrated progress were allocated additional resources to complete other development projects. Although this was successful in rural areas, the Saemaul Undong proved to be unsuccessful (even problematic) for urban areas, as the initiative did not improve living conditions in low-income residential neighborhoods and slums. Moreover, the increasing influx of people migrating from rural to urban areas in search of industrial work dwindled the movement’s momentum, failing to adequately address these issues. Although the Saemaul Undong was successful in redirecting the country’s attention to make significant reforms to modernizing the rural communities, urban areas were ignored. The urban Saemaul Undong lacked the department oversight that should have been responsible for crafting programs that would have improved slums, redevelopment plans and low-income housing relief. It is apparent that the Saemaul Undong was a short-term solution for modernizing rural South Korea and was unable to fully address issues of gentrification of the lower class. More importantly, the movement’s failure bolstered the concept of housing as a commodity, exposing the profit making motives of urban redevelopment projects and failing to understand the needs of communities and its residents.
The implementation of Joint-Redevelopment Programs (JRPs) by the Korean government was used as an instrument of clearance and redevelopment. Since the 1970s, developers, landlords and resident owners work with the local (gu) governments to stimulate high-density development and to ensure profits for all participants involved without having to provide public assistance. Although the JRPs were intended to aid low-income communities acclimate to the rising economy and mass development projects improve post war living conditions, the dynamic among the developers and the tenants were highly polarized. Profit margins were prioritized over resident needs, and the lack of monitoring and accountability measures for JRPs led to mass evictions of tenants as redevelopment occurred. Additionally, JRPs unintentionally caused the gentrification of lower-income residents who were part of the working class, attracting middle class families to settle in the JRP-initiated projects. By distancing the government’s role in overseeing the clearance process and redevelopment construction, it made it more difficult for poorer residents to fight and advocate for affordable housing and inclusion in redeveloped areas. Conversely, redevelopment chaebols became more powerful, and with lack of government oversight, it made it easier for the chaebols to forcibly evict residents.
Located in southwestern Seoul, the district of Mokdong was transformed from a rural farming area to a bustling city that catered to middle class residents. Commenced in 1983, the New Mokdong City Project was initiated by the military regime to keep up with rising housing demands in Seoul. The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) prioritized the eradication of squatter areas and neighborhoods that interfered with the Project’s new town projects and JRP. As a result, more than 10,000 people were forcibly evicted from their residences without any consideration to their housing situation. 2,846 tenant households and 2,359 owner households lost their property and were forced to relocate to areas where the SMG’s eviction policies were not in effect. The Mokdong redevelopment area was a former resettlement area that was provided by the government during the 1960s as part of the SMG’s relocation policy. The fact that new redevelopment projects and JRPs are being initiated in this relocation area for resettled residents demonstrates the municipal government’s inconsistent redevelopment policies. It is undoubtedly unsuccessful in creating safeguard measures that protect Mokdong’s residents from future redevelopment projects that would force them to relocate again. The housing injustices committed by the SMG and redeveloper chaebols further burdened those impacted by state-led gentrification efforts as rent prices in other squatter areas became dramatically inflated. With these struggles to keep in mind, anti-eviction movements emerged, proving the government’s illegitimate redevelopment policies and negligence of the lower class’ needs.
Sanggyedong, situated in northern Seoul, was also one of the neighborhoods severely impacted by redevelopment projects in preparation for the Seoul Olympics. During the mid-1980s, demolition crews destroyed approximately 1,500 households in order to erect high-rise apartments for the middle class. Prior to demolition, the neighborhood was built during the Saemaul Undong movement, when residents were moving from Hannamdong and Cheonggyecheon. The destruction of the Sanggyedong district was covered and hidden from the public due to media censorship, despite large opposition from tenants who confronted law enforcers and municipal officials. The government sought to relocated the impacted families by offering them $1,000 (per family) to relocate to the outskirts of Seoul (ie. Pocheon), only to receive resistance by the families who argues that the proposed relocation site was uninhabitable. The punitive recommendations of JRPs made by the government highlights the systematic dislocation of citizens under the guises of beautifying the community for the Olympic Games. Moreover, the amount of political and economic power held by the government and development chaebols further demonstrates the extents these entities will make to eradicate the urban poor, simply to reap economic profit.
Since 2000, the government has assigned 341 JRPs in Seoul, owning 43% of the land in this region while the rest are illegally established. The application of JRPs generates several problems that affects more than just the urban power class. The JRPs suffer from a lack of legal provisions that safeguard tenants’ rights. There are no provisions made for renting tenants once a living structure is demolished. Consequently, tenants have little bargaining power, and will often refuse to be evicted by staging sit-ins and resisting threats and abuses from hired thugs, gangs and eviction agencies. It is obviously apparent that these projects are meant to benefit developer chaebols rather than actually improving the lives of its residents. It is unfortunate that the government does not provide adequate services to compensate for the relocation of these displaced families. The JRPs are extremely problematic for destroying impoverished communities, ruining the unity of homeowners and residents that used to contently live among one another. This turmoil continues to weaken tenants as a soft power tactic to drive them out of their own communities. Overall, JRPs have played a significant role in forcing out low-income communities to the outskirts of Seoul while at the same time enhancing urban sprawl.
Although Seoul’s involvement in hosting the 1988 Olympic Games garnered international attention and signaled South Korea’s modernization, its successes came at the cost of its residents. When the city was making its Olympic preparations, many local authorities in Seoul’s neighborhoods and districts were given much autonomy on how to implement the city’s clearance plans to redevelop. The local government essentially had control over deciding its forced eviction measures and determining which development deals the city should continue to pursue and abandon. Moreover, President Chun Doo-hwan’s administration sought to expedite urban redevelopment efforts by easing building regulations and municipal ordinances. Prior to the Olympics, the enactment of Public Law #3646, also known as the Urban Redevelopment Law, displaced 720,000 people and destroyed 48,000 buildings to establish commercial buildings and highrise apartment buildings. As a result, chaebols took over with tall office buildings, replacing where the small and medium-sized enterprises once stood. Furthermore, the new housing developments dislocated 90 percent of the residents who could not afford the ostensibly high housing prices. This forced them to live in slums and shantytowns that were typically located in open spaces that bordered around the redeveloped areas. As the Olympics came closer, displaced residents, homeless people, and impoverished street dwellers were forcibly evicted by law enforcement under the guises of renovating Seoul and continuing the city’s grandiose development projects. The intentions of the Korean government to modernize Seoul in the long term failed to consider those who would be displaced by its renovation projects. It is clearly evident that the government prioritized its beautification projects over creating social programs to relocate and aid Seoul’s displaced residents. A 1979 survey illustrates that 35% of Seoul’s population resided in 186, 436 illegal houses. The government’s reliance on forced eviction measures perpetuated the creation of slums within Seoul, adulterating the residents’ struggles. Local municipalities and chaebols used violence, scare tactics, and hired thugs to fully achieve its redevelopment goals and mitigate the presence of the displaced population within Seoul. The radical implementation of mass housing and redevelopment projects angered many tenants who were displaced, leading to an increased rise in tenant activist movements. Evidently, hosting the Olympics in 1988 was South Korea’s attempt at a government focused public relations building campaign to hide its illegitimacy and conceal the country’s urban development struggles from the international community.
The preparation for the 1988 Seoul Olympics clearly was a springboard for practicing forced evictions, clearing large amounts of land, and conducting large-scale rebuilding projects. The Olympics played a significant factor in the redevelopment and gentrification of low-income communities in the sense that the government had the opportunity to increase the nation’s GDP, establish the urban image of a successful global financial sector and catering to the pervasive influences of the capital system. During this time, there was a definite transition in the assignment of responsibilities. The urban working class no longer had the task of homebuilding and was transferred to private development chaebols to maximize development production and expedite the construction of luxurious home units for the middle and upper-middle class. These state-induced gentrification projects were main causes for marginalization that severely displaced the lower class. Moreover, the state perpetuated the systematic cycle of gentrification by privatizing, corporatizing, and industrializing housing initiatives to stimulate and optimize the country’s economic growth.
It is absolutely necessary for the South Korean government to reevaluate the gentrification of low-income groups and make strides to implement programs to improve housing affordability and living conditions for the urban lower class. Currently, the cost of an apartment studio in Jongno swelled 27% between 2014 and 2015, while rent prices in Itaewon significantly increased to 23%. These dramatic rises in rent has negatively impacted small business owners who struggle to compete with chaebols and foreign corporations. Although the SMU has proposed a series of anti-gentrification measures that would preserve the cultural identities of these targeted districts and secure the residencies of its original tenants, there is great concern over the influence of chaebols in dodging these regulatory measures and perpetuating gentrification efforts. Additionally, there is great concern over the SMU’s jurisdiction concerning the intervention of private contracts, potentially disrupting relations between the landlord and tenant. To address the issues of gentrification and mitigate the marginalization of low-income communities in the future, municipal governments must be able to facilitate and enable individuals and chaebols to initiate their own housing projects to make it accessible for anyone to own land. More importantly, the government must consider eliminating the jeonse system. This system advances the value of landlords’ properties, furthering their pockets and thus advancing the economic distribution of the middle and upper class. By taking these factors into consideration, the South Korean government will be able to alleviate the gentrification of low-income communities and stimulate economic growth by preserving them.