ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the urban dimension of the North Korean economy. Few
areas of economic management of centrally planned economies have met with
such widespread dissatisfaction and broad popular support for reforms as
housing and urban development. This dissatisfaction arises from the peculiar
systemic features of the “socialist city.” Since the early 1990s we have been able
to study the economics of this type of city based on data from cities of the former
Soviet Union, Central Europe, and also China and Vietnam. Of course, no such
access to information exists today in North Korea.
