ABSTRACT
Apartment housing constitutes one of the principal urban orders in Korean cities due to their sheer number and a distinct organisational method called danji, which refers to a complex of buildings. It includes apartment buildings of five storeys or more with in-complex amenities. South Korea suffered a severe housing shortage from the mid 1960s until the early 1990s, when the government's "Two Million Home Construction Drive" created a housing glut. Scholars who study urban gating agree that gated communities are a worldwide phenomenon. The significant presence of apartment complexes in the urban milieu of Korea has yielded a lasting impact on the organisation of its cities and its society in both positive and negative ways. If the prohibition of outside vehicles was indicative of the first wave of gating, residents of some of the newer apartment complexes built since the late 2000s have started a second wave of gating by preventing pedestrian access by outsiders.
