Itaewon’s merchant community has taken it upon itself to jump-start a Great Leap Foward in the development of the ghetto neighborhood.
The Chosun Ilbo reports some 2,000 area merchants have come together to form a committee that seeks to turn Itaewon into a Mecca of tourism. Their plans for the neighborhood include rebuilding a 1.4km night market between Noksapyeong and Hangangjin stations. On May 1-7, the neighborhood will hold a street festival in which local stores will offer sales of up to 80 percent. A stage will be built for street performances as well.
Key to the program is aggressive content development for foreign tourists. Itaewon is home to some 40 foreign embassies and around 20,000 foreigners (including me). Another 2 million foreign tourists visit the neighborhood annually. The head of the neighborhood committee said his group would try to turn Itaewon into a place where one could sample famous foods from all over the world and enjoy traditional arts all in the same place.
They also plan to turn the parking lot next to the Crown Hotel into a 5-story aboveground, 4-story underground tourism complex. The complex would contain two theaters for concerts and musicals, a foreigner-use casino, a duty-free shop and other tourist facilities.
Promotional ambassadors for the project will include talents Kim A-jung, Go Ju-won and Choe Yun-yeong.
19 Comments
This could be a good idea if they build a properly designed theatre for musicals and performances. Seoul has a severe shortage of such and it would help greatly, however, if they botch the design, it would be almost completely useless.
I hope they consult a professional firm for the job and don’t skimp on the requirements!
This is all related to the other plans for Itaewon and Pogwang-dong and other nearby areas. The area from the alley just south of Itaewon’s main drag all the way down to the southern end of Pogwang-dong is to be razed and turned into several major apartment complexes. Pop into a 부동산 for a look at the redevelopment district’s borders.
Parts of Haebangchon are also scheduled for a date with the wrecking ball. So this “ghetto” you mention is going to be full of million-dollar apartments.
Are these just going to be more of the nauseating communist style apartments Seoul has more than enough of already?
I don’t know, JYCE, but in the last couple years there have been some very nice apartment buildings going up. The new stuff in Ichon-dong, for example, is much nicer than Ichon-dong’s older stuff. A lot more greenery, parks, better looking buildings, etc. Unfortunately, some of the old-type stuff is still going up, but in a few years, I think they will be the exception, not the rule.
What will happen if all the foreigners are chased out by high rental prices? Where will they all go? No more Itaewon as we now know it? Hongdae?
“nauseating communist style apartments”
Are you referring to those high rise apartments?
Those are perfect!
What do you wanna have? The american style detached houses that are so wasteful of space?
Ghetto? That’s your own neighborhood you are talking about. Be careful or people might think you’re only living there because the rent is so much cheaper than other parts of Seoul.
Like there’s any other reason to live there?
JYCE:
Actually, a lot of the oldest and now most dilapidated apartment complexes (though in some way quaint, unless you actually have to live there?) are getting torn down and replaced with shiny new complexes. There’s a HUGE swathe of Songpa-gu across the Han River in the southeast—between the Olympic Stadium and Lotte World—that used to feature lowrise (maybe 5-storey?) buildings that must have been built in the very first wave of development (late 70s?)…they’ve all been torn down and are going to be replaced by new buildings. Like Kushibo said, the newest complexes are actually half-decent—especially on the inside—but yeah, they do look pretty monolithic from the outside.
The bigger issue now—bigger than the aesthetic angle—would probably be that all this redevelopment on such a massive scale seems to be linked to the sky-high driving up of property values—it’s feeding into or being fed by the massive amount of money that’s being invested in real estate (a lot of it speculative). (Although arguably, the construction of large amounts of new living space should help to stabilize prices, not raise them further—but an English-language story a few days ago in one of the online papers mentioned that the new bedroom suburb of Pangyo south of Seoul hasn’t even been built yet, but its prices are already inflating due to speculation.)
I would love to see any decent landscaping of greenspace as well but that is almost unheard of here (quality of life???). Perhaps they could put large gardens on the rooftops?
Yeah, that’d be the biggest issue I’d have with these complexes: that all the space not occupied by the buildings themselves generally seems to be paved over for parking. Let alone those of us who don’t actually live there, you’d think the people living there would appreciate something more in the way of greenspace!
That’s right Sewing - online bidding for Pangyo started this week, and according to folks I know who tried, bidders were basically frozen due to internet traffic. Regarding the speculative nature of properties here: seems like, no matter what, the established areas prevail, so investments there seem solid. Even Pangyo thrills, in part, due to its relative geographic location.
As an aside, lots of people think that the older places in Ichon-dong - like 신동아 - are nice. Many have remodelled interiors, plus the neighbors are often quite good. Who knows - Robert might be getting a new hit on his blog from that area starting in May.
All the space is paved over for parking due to a legal requirement that every last apartment come with its own free parking space. I have various (conspiracy) theories as to why this is the case: Seoul is a postwar city and all postwar cities are built for cars, the large numbers of Koreans that have lived in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California, and perhaps a covert government subsidy to the domestic automobile industry. In any case it’s exasperating that so much space has to be wasted for parking in a city that is clearly much too dense for so many cars.
I’ve linked here a google image search in which you can clearly see how much Korea’s apartment complexes resemble those in communist countries. If anything, the apartments in the former East Germany are better than the ones in Seoul because they do not have the parking lots nor corporate advertisements on the side.
I wish I could be more sanguine about the aesthetic issue, but the jaw dropping ugliness of the built environment in Korea is IMO, a major factor shaping negative perceptions towards the country. People are much more forgiving towards rude people and surly service if they have at least some attractive buildings and monuments to look at.
Well, we have to distinguish between exteriors and interiors here. Yes, from the outside, most of these complexes are nothing to shake a stick at. But most modern complexes (especially those built in about the last 10 years or so) are very nice inside.
Regarding the parking, why aren’t there more underground parkades in these complexes? It would seem to be a simple space-saving solution—a few buildings have them—and I don’t know of any issue with soil conditions in most parts of Seoul or elsewhere that would prevent the construction of underground parkades….
I would have to agree with “jyce” in regards to the pure ugliness of Seoul and many parts of Korea. Even the archtectural design professors in Korea are not happy about, from what I’ve read. I think some sort of aesthetics needs to be forced on developers since this would improve the country and its quality of life (well-being maybe!). Such could also cut down on the amount of re-development which is performed for speculative purposes only. I have little faith in the integrety of what is now in place for regulating such though — their lack of taste and good judgement is profound. These people seem stuck in the 60s and 70s in terms of mentality (building is good, not building is bad). I would rather recruit one planner from a university with design and environmental experience and give him carte blanche for twenty years. That would be the only way to really break the cycle of greed, ugliness and stupidity.
New laws on public advertising would help tremendously as well. A ban on banners, loan-shark stickers, internet provider advertisements, etc. would go a long way in cleaning up the city.
Reclaiming sidewalk space should be enforced. In Athens (Greece), the city fines businesses that set up displays and tables outside of their business. They let restaurants put out tables but also impose a fee, which goes into running the city. Our current presidential-wanna-be mayor built a stream (ditch) in the city but does not have the smarts to keep the trash out of it or to clean up anything. More is the pity.
Bzzzert! Sorry, those two pairs of words don’t go together. Whatever they may look like inside, they’re butt-ugly outside, and the view you get from such an appartment is in 99% of cases appalling. And of course they don’t help with the overcrowding. People should stop thinking in terms of space wasted. There’s lots of space available – outside Seoul…
and
… and too many people too…
Stack up vertically 10,000 people in an area that could/should not have more than a few hundreds and you have a huge parking problem, with 1.5 cars per household.
OTOH, THIS is a proper use of space…
R. Elgin:
I dunno, FWIW, all the advertising and sidewalk life everywhere is part of what gives the city (and Daegu too, where I spend a lot of time) their appeal to me. I know it goes against all aesthetic and good urban design principles, but without all that, these cities would be just that much more boring to me.
Sewing, I’m refering to the pandemic of stickers on private and public property plus street banners from both realtors and internet and cable companies like HBC and Powercom. It used to be Thrunet and Hanaro were doing it but they have reduced their advertising to taped-up paper, which is everywhere.
There is nothing interesting about that unless one likes trash. You should try another city other than Seoul with some sense of aesthetics like Athens, Prague or Pest and compare to understand what I’m talking about (KAL flies to Prague now!). Even Tokyo is cleaner than most any place in Seoul and their streets have a more refined sense of style, albeit Japanese.
The redevelopment that Kushibo was talking about is the Hannam New Town - I found a photo of a plan here, and an ‘advertisement ‘ photo here, though how much these will reflect what eventually gets built, I’ve no idea. Seoul City is planning to raze a total of 24 square km of the older areas of Seoul (mostly within its pre-1963 boundaries) to make way for these new towns.
By the way, I first thought of Dresden (another post-war city) when I first arrived here and saw all the apartment blocks.