The Gangnam-Ization of Korean Urban Ideology

Chapter 7 The Gangnam-ization of Korean Urban Ideology

Bae-Gyoon Park and Jin-bum Jang

1 Introduction

If there is one key word that could characterize contemporary Korean cities, it would be ‘apartments’.1 Single-unit housing was a dominant mode of residence in Korea before the 1980s, but the construction of apartments and multi-unit homes has rapidly increased since then. In particular, the development of mas- sive new towns in the Seoul Metropolitan Area from 1989 onward has triggered a flood in the supply of apartments, ushering in a transition to apartment life for most Koreans. Reflecting on this transformation, Gelézeau (2007) dubs Ko- rea the “apartment republic.” Other scholars have also noted how the sudden apartmentization of the country has shaped middle class cultural life (Park H., 2013) and has led to the virtual destruction of previously existing urban com- munities (Park C., 2013). A second key word that characterizes Korea’s urban transformations is ‘new town’. Through the 1980 Housing Site Development Promotion Act, the Korean state supported the construction of several new towns around the country, including Bundang and Ilsan in the Seoul Metro- politan Area. Facing rapid urbanization and a sharp increase in housing de- mand in some cities, the central government sought to quickly develop a large supply of affordable housing. In 1981, it designated and developed eleven new town sites through the Housing Site Development Promotion Act. By Decem- ber 2016, a total of 617 new towns had been developed through the act, ac- counting for a total of 2.5% of the country’s total land area and 24.4% of its urban housing. These two key phenomena — high-rise apartments and new town construction — have profoundly shaped Korea’s urbanization process since the 1980s. The model for much of this urban development was Gangnam, a new town south of the Han River in Seoul that was developed in the 1970s. It occupies the

1 This chapter is a revised version of an article entitled “Gangnam-ization and Korean Urban Ideology” (in Korean), that first appeared in 2016 in the Journal of Korean Organization of Re- gional Geographical Research 22(2): 287–306. The authors wish to thank Yoonai Han, Bridget Martin and Jamie Doucette for assistance with the translation, proofreading, and editing of this chapter.

The Gangnam-ization of Korean Urban Ideology 135 dominant model of what a city is for the urban developments that followed it and to this day it continues to serve as an aspirational template for cities around the country. Through the development of physical urban spaces like apartment complexes, new cities, and residential areas, planners and develop- ers do not simply replicate Gangnam as a physical space, however. The urban is not only comprised of the visible built environment—high-rise buildings, apartment, wide roads, and rectangular street networks—but also of various embedded meanings and institutions that are related to lifestyles, modes of thinking, and patterns of social relations. The urban is comprised of these many different elements: its visible shape, its living environment, and its discursive representations. All of these shape how we understand what urban life is and carry with them normative ideals that perform their own implicit ideo- logical work. In the context of Korean urbanization, ‘Gangman’ functions as a signifier for a distinct way of life and set of desires. Ji (2016) shows that with Gangnam as its emblematic example, Korean urbanity is marked by aspiration for landscapes of luxury high-rise apartments surrounded by glamorous entertainment and cultural facilities. These apartments are treated as a form of housing preferred by the upper-middle class as well as strategic investment assets for capital ac- cumulation in a society governed by the logic of competitiveness. Additionally, the resources needed to achieve social status and success in Gangnam-ized urban spaces, such as private education, requires the concentration of human, social, and cultural capital. In Korea, the name Gangnam signifies cultural and social superiority and the clustering of activities needed to achieve it. In this sense, Gangnam is an important touchstone for understanding Korean urban- ism, its aspirations, wish-images, and ideologies, beyond simply its physical urban form. Gangnam is more than a district of Seoul. It circulates as an urban ideal that encapsulates the dreams and aspirations of Korea’s middle classes. New towns purporting to be Gangnam-style are sprouting up around the country, such as the Gangnam of Daegu, the Gangnam of Busan, and the Gangnam of Jinju. In this chapter, we use the term ‘Gangnam-ization’ to refer to this prolif- eration of Gangnam-style urban spaces. Not only are Gangnam’s urban spaces copied in plans and reconstructed by planners and policy-makers, but ordi- nary people and urban residents in Korea have defined and imagined what the urban is on the basis of the Gangnam-like urban spaces and Gangnam ways of living. This process, we suggest, now dominates Korea’s entire urbanization landscape. Moreover, Gangnam-ization unfolds in two processes that we call ‘Gangnam-making’ and ‘Gangnam-following’. The ‘Gangnam-making’ process involves the physical construction and discursive representation of