ABSTRACT
The Greenbelts were designated not only in large cities (Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju and Daejon) but also in the small-and-medium sized cities where no development pressure had ever existed. Some cities drew the boundaries of the Greenbelts too tightly with little room left for urban expansion at the initial stage while other cities kept designated too much land for future development (see Map 1). The boundaries of Greenbelts were hurriedly drawn without any scrutiny in the field and behind closed doors. As examples, a village might be divided in the middle by a Greenbelt and in some cases the Greenbelt line would crisscross a single building lot. The population in the RDZs dropped by about one-half from 1,400,000 in 1971 to 740,000 in 1998. Punitive and rigid Greenbelt regulations made it impossible for the residents to build a new house or even to repair a crumbling roof of an existing house. As nobody wants to buy a house or land within the Greenbelts, land prices have plummeted to about one-fifth compared to land prices on both sides of the Greenbelts. However, nobody seriously listened to the hardships and relative deprivation of the Greenbelt residents in the Greenbelts. Successive governments passively neglected the voices of residents and land owners in the RDZs for nearly three decades, rather than opening up a very contentious issue. Strong opposition to the reform initiative of the RDZ policy came from people outside the RDZs enjoying open and green space at someone else's expense and from environmental activists who advocate the preservation of the green and natural environment, regardless of who pays the cost. However, it was no longer possible to put the lid on the Greenbelt issue for long after the civilian government was restored in 1993.
