Understanding Urban Problems in Korea: Continuity and Change

Abstract

This paper is prepared with two purposes. The first part of the paper describes spatial patterns of Korean urbanization and analyzes their underlying logic. Followed by the introduction of some major characteristics of Korean urbanization, the relationships between specific spatial patterns of Korean urbanization, types of industrialization and agrarian transition are explored. Also, under the rubric of developmental bubble city, explanations for some specific urban outcomes are provided. In contrast, the second part of this paper deals with the chances of an emerging new paradigm which contradicts past tendencies of urbanization. Newly emerging tensions in Korean urbanization are explained by the criteria of urban production and collective consumption. From the production side, the metropolitanization of post-fordism through urban industrial restructuring becomes manifest, while increasing tendencies of citizen participation through the rise of urban civil society is gaining support from the collective consumption side.