Seoul
Hong Kong
World average
Figure 3: Picture graph showing the population density of different areas
The overpopulation and poor land usage obviously leads to the next urban issue, housing. The housing problem in Seoul is a delicate issue. Knowing that the population density in Seoul was very high, city planners built the type of housing that could support a lot of people while taking up little amount of land. Seoul is filled with apartments, with enough housing for everyone, but there are still problems of people who cannot afford one. This is not the city planner’s fault, but it is fault of inhabitants themselves. The people realized that housing in Seoul - a city with high population density and many lands inhabitable - was rare commodity and thus perfect for investment. The wealthy people bought many houses not to live there but as an investment, and the price of housing skyrocketed because of its popularity. The price increased so much now that many people cannot afford to buy one, and this has created a controversial problem where nothing can be done even though some people do not have a house to live in while there are many houses unoccupied. The government could not do anything since it is not illegal, so other alternative methods were designed. One was to impose high taxes on unoccupied housing, which would make them less attractive and naturally a drop in prices. However, the more often used and successful method was to develop many satellite cities by building more apartments in them. From 1995 to 2000, the population of South Korea increased by 1.52 million. 88% of the total population increase occurred in satellite cities near Seoul. Excluding Seoul and six other “megalopolises” (term South Korean government uses to define cities that is no longer under state control: Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Daejon, Gwangju, Ulsan), the next five largest cities – Goyang, Suwon, Siheung, Yongin, and Nam Yangju – were all Seoul’s satellite cities. The government also built more apartments compared to smaller housing. In 1995, detached housing composed of 46.9% and apartments composed 37.7% of total housing; however in 2000, apartments composed 47.8% and detached housing just 37.3%. It is no coincidence that Seoul is the only metropolis in the world where the tallest skyscraper is used solely for residence.
The overpopulation leads to other problems as well. During the early stages of development in South Korea, the government realized that the quickest way for a resource-less country to develop was through success in international trade. To be able to compete in the international market against foreign mega-companies, the government had to promote big conglomerates. Although that has helped Korea become wealthy very quickly, it has hindered the growth of small and medium enterprises, which creates jobs in the local market. This initially did not create much problem because as the country’s economy developed in incredible speed, more jobs were created by growing companies; however, when the financial crisis struck South Korea in 1997, the outflow of foreign currency severely diminished the power of international conglomerates, the pillars of South Korean economy. Hence now, the small and medium enterprises, or the lack thereof, was critical to unemployment. This situation, coupled with overpopulation, has made jobs very difficult to find in Seoul. At the first quarter of year 2003, 8% of people between 20-29 years old were measured to be unemployed in Seoul.
Figure 4: Bar graph showing capacity of each vehicle in 2000, Seoul
As mentioned above, Seoul’s population density is beyond extremity, and another problem it creates is in transportation. Personal car owning became a trend during late 20th century, and now there are nearly 2.8 million registered motor vehicles in Seoul. While the number of cars is increasing continuously, the expensive land value - as explained above – makes it difficult to build new roads. Carpooling is an afterthought, as 85.4% of car-owners ride their car to work and 70% go to work riding alone. Excess of cars also leads to accidents; South Korea is third in the world for car accidents per capita. This traffic problem was handled based on models of other countries, especially the United States, and Seoul’s city administration has done an outstanding job to minimize road traffic. During the 1970s, when there were less than 0.2 million registered cars in Seoul, the city planners looked at the United States and forecasted that there would be many cars in Seoul later on; hence, they built wide freeways on areas – which were then still used for farming – and it helps lessen traffic in one of the busiest areas of Seoul today. To offset road traffic, the government also promoted public mass transportation, which amasses 47.4% of total transportation shown by figure 4. Today, the public transportation system in Seoul is one of the best in the world. Even though the subway in Seoul was constructed rather recently in 1974, figure 5 shows that it was ridden 2.44 billion times in 2002, making it the third busiest subway system in the world after Moscow’s and Tokyo’s. Seoul’s subway system is also second only to New York’s with 367 total stations. There are also 390 different bus lines in Seoul, used more than 4 billion times in 2002. The government made public transportation very affordable in Seoul, where prices are nearly half of other cities’ systems. Also by promoting development in rural areas, the outflow of people will lessen transportation problems as well.
Figure 5: Table showing the major subway systems of cities
Figure 6: Line Graph showing the total fertility rate of South Korea
One of the most critical problems in Seoul is the aging society. As the economy developed, you can see from figure 6 that the total fertility rate - the average number of children per woman in their childbearing years - of South Korea has been a continuous decline from 1959, reaching 1.17 children per woman last year. According to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development statistics, “South Korea's total fertility rate is lower than that of the United States, major European countries and Japan…” A total fertility value of 2.1 is considered ideal to sustain generation replacement. The growing women’s rights has also affected the number of women marrying and divorcing, shown in figure 7, and these changes have resulted in fall of infants being born from 557,000 in 2001 to 495,000 in 2002. Economic development also brings with it higher life expectancy, which increased from 62.3 in 1971 to 76.5 in 2001. Since people are living longer and having fewer babies as well, the society obviously becomes older. The table shown at figure 8 shows this trend in South Korean population. In this rate, by 2050, the dependency ratio of South Korea will become astonishing 81.6% and the mean age 51 years old. High dependency ratio and mean age is a problem since it reduces the production. High dependency ratio refers more people cannot work and must be supported by lesser amount of people who do work. High mean age also directly affects production since young people will naturally be able to produce more. There are not clear solutions to this problem. The government has only realized recently how serious this problem is, and how difficult it is to solve. One cannot advertise people to marry or to die early. In Seoul, the city administration is encouraging people to have more babies and to work in their older ages, but the extreme competitiveness from high population density makes it hard for the old people to keep their jobs. This issue is recent and therefore the government’s efforts for a younger population cannot be evaluated. Seoul’s administration also developed senior welfare facilities, not to suppress the aging society, but to face it.
Figure 7: Line graph showing marriages rate and divorces of South Korea
Figure 8: Table showing dependency ratio and mean age of South Korea
Another urban issue in Seoul is pollution and waste management. There are all kinds of these problems in Seoul: water pollution from homes, factories, and pesticides; air pollution from car exhaust and factories; soil pollution from heavy metals, trash, pesticides, and wastewater; and other kinds of pollutions such as noise. As shown by figure 9, air pollution in South Korea is extremely severe compared to other OECD countries. Excess of motor vehicles – mentioned above – creates 85.4% of the air pollution in Seoul, generating detrimental gases such as CO, HC, NO2, and SO2. Han River, one of the widest rivers, acts as the source of water that supplies more than 10 billion people. Urbanization and industrialization during the 1960s began the contamination of the river. The lack of finance and consideration also supplemented to the contamination. Although plans to restore Han River began in 1980s, it could not stop the wastes from housings that were being built in tremendous speed near the river at that time. The population of Seoul increased only by 8.4 billion in the 80s to 1.03 billion in 2001, sewage amount increased significantly from 2.42 billion tons/day to 6.11 billion tons/day in the same period. From the 1990s, Seoul administration has turned its goals to make Seoul an environment-friendly place. First they proposed to clean up the Han River, building high-quality treatment facilities, driving factories to rural areas, substituting worn-out equipments, and promoting recycling; these efforts have helped decrease the amount of harmful wastewater, evidenced by figure 11. Concerning air pollution, the city promoted clean fuels and strictly punished any factories that were producing illegal amount of air pollution and figure 12 shows that the emissions of air pollution are decreasing as well, which now meets WHO standards. Recently, Seoul government took two major actions to improve Seoul’s quality of living by handling waste problems. They built the symbolic World Cup Stadium of Seoul on an area which was once a landfill called Nanji-do. Nanji-do acted as a landfill since 1978, and immense amount of trash produced by the developing economy and its people was stashed in the area. The Seoul administration, to encourage development in this deserted area, constructed the World Cup Stadium and revived the landfill to build the World Cup Park, where plants and animals were brought. The other project is restoration of Cheonggye-cheon. In 1958, an overpass was built on top of Cheongye-cheon - a stream flowing beside the central business district of Seoul - becoming the symbol of amazing economic development of South Korea. However, to promote rebuilding of the inner city, the city decided to raze the overpass and restore the environment rich stream that will flow right through the heart of Seoul. In total, there are 1,437 parks in Seoul covering 155.85 km2, which is roughly 25% of Seoul’s total area. Park area per capita is 15 m2, which is about the same as cities in other EMDC countries.
Figure 9: Bar Graphs showing air pollution in different cities
Figure 10: Annotated picture of Nanji-do before and after construction of World Cup Stadium
Figure 11: Amount of water pollution in Seoul
Figure 12: Amount of air pollution in Seoul
Similar problems have occurred in every other major city as well. However, since development occurred so much faster in Seoul, the problems are in some ways more severe. It seems Seoul’s administration has done a good job, pretty much having the handles on every urban issue except for one, which is the aging. This problem does not only concern Seoul; every other EMDC city is going through it as well. Then again, the other cities are going through this change after they became moderately wealthy; the fact that this change is occurring in Seoul today is detrimental. There is no clear solution to this problem, and no city actually succeeded in making itself younger once it started aging. I see this problem as the most serious issues facing Seoul today, because it directly damages production when Seoul most needs it. Transportation issues and pollution issues cannot be overlooked, but it is much easier since there are concrete solutions to the problem. Population issues will also be eventually solved once other cities are developed. These problems obviously cannot be solved overnight; however, these must be solved in order for Seoul to join other EMDC cities and be known as the proud capital city of South Korea.
