Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon explains the “Gangbuk Development Plan” at the Gangbuk Culture Arts Hall on Aug. 19. (Photos: SMG)

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon announced policies to ensure balanced development of the capital with a focus on investments in “Gangbuk” north of the Han River. Mayor Park came up with the policies on the development of the Gangbuk area, which is underdeveloped compared to Gangnam, south of the river, at the Gangbuk Culture Arts Hall on Aug. 19.

His move came after he spent one month in a rented rooftop house in Samyang-dong, Seongbuk-gu, northern Seoul, one of the underdeveloped districts in the capital, to get a first-hand experience into what life is like in such substandard living conditions. Mayor Park launched what he called the first-hand experience on July 22 in the substandard second-floor two-room house, a far cry from his official mayoral residence in Gahoe-dong.
Explaining the rationale of his plan to develop the Gangbuk area, Mayor Park said, “The reason for the development of Gangnam was that the government concentrated investments on traffic, urban planning and schooling zones in the Gangnam area in the 1970s whereas the development of Gangbuk was restricted.”

Park said the Seoul Metropolitan Government will level up a school yard, which has inclined to one side, so its budget will be concentrated on the development of Gangbuk, departing from the conventional uniformed fiscal distribution. To this end, the mayor said, a special account of 1 trillion won, raised through return on development merits, will be poured into the development initiative.

The SMG plans to put into practice six strategies, including the expanding of traffic infrastructure, the improving of living environment conditions, the strengthening of self-sufficiency of the regional economy, the relocation of public institutions, and fiscal investment paradigm shift.
Seoul Mayor Park said his metropolitan government decided to advance the launch of light rail transit and other urban railway lines in the Gangbuk area before his terms end in 2022. The Myeonmok, Ui-Shinseol extension, Mokdong and Nangok lines will be pushed with the SMG budget.

Monorails will be installed in consideration of the characteristics of the Gangbuk area with many ascents and hilly areas. Public facilities and public parking lots will be required to set aside parking space for sharing cars to fix a chronic parking shortage. In order to increase public parking lots in the non-Gangnam area, the metropolitan government will plunk down more than 2 billion won in the construction of parking space, and it will also subsidize in building an additional 90 parking lots by 2022.

In order to improve living conditions, the SMG will buy vacant houses to utilize them as youth start-up spaces, youth houses, and community areas. The municipal government will purchase 400 houses next year – a combined 1,000 houses by 2022— and supply them to youth and newly-weds.

Seoul Mayor’s Experience at Rented Rooftop House Draws Keen Attention

Mayor Park’s first-hand experience program was conceived as part of his efforts to make good on balanced development between districts north and south of the Han River, one of the public pledges he made during his reelection campaign.
He also confirmed the plan in the Gangbuk area while delivering his inauguration speech after he was reelected for a third term as the 7th elected mayor.

He even grappled with a fight to beat the deadly heat with the temperature in Seoul soaring to 39.6 degrees, the highest in 111 years of meteorological observation. Mayor Park battled the heat with only an electric fan, presented by President Moon Jae-in. Park assembled the electric fan by himself in the presence of his wife Kang Nan-hee.

He brought with him blankets, books and tables. Even though he brought a portable stove into the rented house, he had a breakfast at a nearby restaurant. He used the subway to commute to City Hall and returned home after finishing his official work. He spent his evening hours with neighborhood residents, including construction crews at a construction site.
Park had a meeting with 16 bus drivers at a trade union office of Samyang Transportation, not far away from his rented house. The drivers made such requests as the expansion of low-floor buses and central bus-only lanes and in return, the mayor replied favorably.