Urban Reclamation and Regeneration in Seoul, South Korea

Abstract

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, Seoul, South Korea, pur sued a bold new experiment in urban regeneration. This has principally involved reclaiming urban space given to the automobile in the post-Korean War era. Through the leadership of Myung-Bak Lee, former mayor of Seoul and now president of South Korea, the city has sought to strike a balance between transport infrastructure as a mobility provider and public space as an urban amenity. In good part this has been motivated by a desire to be globally competitive with the likes of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other tigers of East Asia’s rapidly growing economy by emphasizing quality of life every bit as much as mobility and large-scale infrastructure development.