ABSTRACT
How did the Korean state develop Seoul into a modern city while being preoccupied with industrialization? The previous chapter examined how, in addition to the widely known developmental state’s role in industrialization, the developmental state put forth urbanization strategies that went hand in hand with its industrialization policies, producing a national urban network. Building industrial new towns in open rural fields for factories and factory workers is one thing; developing a city to accommodate the growth of six million new residents in just 20 years (i.e., Seoul’s population grew from 2.4 million in 1960 to 8.3 million in 1980) is quite another. A city with such exploding population growth is more likely to struggle in providing adequate urban development and services and thus end up with slums and a series of urban problems, which was in fact what Seoul had also faced. Following up on the previous chapter’s macro-analysis of Korea’s urbanization and industrialization, this chapter provides a more close-up analysis of how the Korean state directed land and housing development in Seoul so as to build the modern city it is today.
