For the last 3 decades, Gangbuk district (North of Han River) has been underdeveloped due to discriminating downtown regulations and poor regeneration of the existing streets, while Gangnam district (South of Han River) has been intensively developed ...
For the last 3 decades, Gangbuk district (North of Han River) has been underdeveloped due to discriminating downtown regulations and poor regeneration of the existing streets, while Gangnam district (South of Han River) has been intensively developed with real estate capitals and rich class concentrated. As a result, there is an extremely wide gap between two districts. Particularly, through 70's and 80's, the central and Seoul metropolitan governments had continued to check concentration of the population in Gangbuk district, while promoting development of Gangnam, causing a reverse balance between the two districts today. Recently, the issue of a social integration emerges because of the serious unbalance of living environment, educational conditions and real estate prices between the two districts. In short, the balanced development between the two districts has become a pending challenge undeniable.
As the local autonomy system began to be operated in 1990's, Seoul metropolitan government turned to the balanced development between Gangbuk and Gangnam districts, admitting the gap of development between the two districts. In 1998, Seoul metropolitan government designed and implemented 'Basic Plan for Housing Redevelopment in Seoul' in an effort to surmount the problems of the housing redevelopment and enhance quality of the housing redevelopment projects. However, the projects under 'Basic Plan for Housing Redevelopment' could not but be too limited to improve the urban and living environments in Seoul because the projects were initiated by the private capitals. Thus, in order to promote the balanced development between Gangbuk and Gangnam districts, Seoul metropolitan government published 'Action Plan for Balanced Development among Districts' in October, 2002 and thereby, began to push ahead with the new town projects on a full scale. The new town projects were designed to improve the urban environment of Gangbuk district which had relatively fallen behind Gangnam district and resolve the unbalance between districts and ultimately promote the balanced development among regions and normalize the distorted urban structure.
The new town development projects refer to regeneration of the existing streets implemented by Seoul metropolitan government. The projects aim to combine reconstruction and redevelopment projects into a package project and thereby, improve Gangbuk district with 'planning first and development later' method so that Gangbuk district would be a better district to live in 10 years later. In October, 2002, Seoul metropolitan government divided the project types in large into housing center, downtown and new street and therewith, published 3 model new town zones of Gil-Um, Eun-Pyong and Wangshimri. Since then, a total of 35 new town project zones have been designated.
Assuming that the new town projects should continue to develop, this study aimed to review the conflicts involving the projects and relevant legal and institutional problems and thereby, suggest a direction for new town development. To this end, the researcher examined foreign cases and thereby, conducted a questionnaire survey for the residents living in Gil-Um new town project zone to address the problems involving the new town projects and suggest some urban development policy alternatives to help our society prepared for the future problems including the aged society. As a result of the survey, it was found that the residents wanted that the native people would be resettled in the new towns and that the new town development would reflect the historical and cultural conditions of Gangbuk district and that the urban and living environment would be improved. For a successful Gangbuk development, the results of this study suggest that a proper development method should be adopted with the sufficient financial resources secured, and that the public organizations should coordinate the projects with an effective leadership and that the experts should participate in the new town planning process.
In conclusion, the new town projects need to be planned so that present and future desires for development may be harmonized appropriately based on the past experiences. To be so, it is deemed necessary to encourage the people to participate in the development for improvement of their welfare, stabilize native people' and tenants' housing life and living, develop an effective housing policy model to stabilize the housing price, explore a sustainable downtown redevelopment model and design the new town projects in preparation for the aged society. In addition, Gangbuk and Gangnam districts should be developed to have their own unique image in view of environment and history. Lastly, it should not be overlooked that if Gangnam district should be developed into a modern urban and living space, Gangbuk district should be developed into a living space where history, environment and culture co-exist to have an identity different from Gangnam.