Sudogwon New Town Blues

I've not always been kind to Korean New Towns in general, and to doomed "greenfield" projects in the Incheon - Gyeonggi area in particular (see for instance "From urban mirages to urban decay", or "Wet eyes for wetlands and urban mirages"*), but today Korea JoongAng Daily didn't mince their words in this title: "Collapse of Incheon new town is end of era" (Korea JoongAng Daily 20130308).

The article was triggered by a decision from the Korean Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs to strip part of Geomdan New Town from its New Town status, consequently allowing residents to follow new projects of their own. The journalist mentions other new towns struggling in the capital region (a.k.a Sudogwon = Seoul + Incheon + Gyeonggi-do): new ones - such as in Dongtan or Paju - as well as old darlings - Yongin and Bundang lost 22 and 25% of their value over the past 5 years.

The 10 projects listed in the article** are expected to deliver 613,000 apartments for 1.6 million people between 2001 and 2020. I think most dwellings have already been completed, but they only represent a portion of all Sudogwon new towns - the ones with national government support (for instance not a single one in Seoul, not Incheon's Songdo and Cheongna, not Gyeonggi-do's Namyangju and co...). And of course there's the competition from yet other new towns: property value in Sejong City jumped by almost 22% last year, compared to a disappointing 2.18% for Sudogwon, and net migration into Sudogwon nosedived from 209,000 people in 2002 to 8,000 in 2012. And of course, new towns themselves represent only a portion of all urban developments***.

By 2020, the population of Seoul Capital Area is expected to be the same as it is today, about 25.5 million souls. Of course, household structures do evolve, and change in North Korea could radically modify the equation, but again, you can't beat demographics, and this is a non-zero-sum game: even if, by miracle, all these New Towns were to succeed, some Older Towns would necessarily fail.

And again, this is "the end of an era, but not yet the end of the real estate dream"*. The "apateu = guaranteed jackpot" illusion is not completely dead, and new mirages keep popping up.

From the start, Geomdan New Town was not the sexiest project. And even downsized, it will struggle next to Gimpo New Town, a huge bed town recently delivered, and not very far from Magok District (see "Magok District: SIM City as in "Seoul Intra Muros"? Alleyways as in "Seoul Inter Muros"?"). Something's gotta give between all the residential projects, but also between their industrial sidekicks (over 2.2 M square meters for the new and improved Incheon Geomdan General Industrial Complex). Geomdan's New Town status was granted in October 2006, at the peak of the bubble, and many projects have been reconsidered in the years that followed, but I don't remember seing any strategic vision laid out regarding the big picture following the big collapse. Only more denial, and new non-vital projects specially designed to help friendly constructors keep busy and afloat.

Today's KJD article

At a time when financial products propose yields barely superior to inflation rates, Sejong City's +22% could sound sexy, but this project was a walking dead not so long ago, and remains subject to political hiccups. Furthermore, Sejong City demonstrated once more the limits of urban planning in Korean new towns: after lobbying against a KTX station that would have allowed many civil servants to commute to Seoul instead of settling down in the new adminstrative center, authorities are now complaining about the lack of connections with the capital.

Nothing new under the sun: I was flabbergasted to learn that the subway between the future Incheon International Airport and Seoul would be on purpose delayed until years after ICN's inauguration, just to spare cab drivers. And outraged to see how Pangyo had been designed against all elementary rules of urbanism****. I once discussed with Seoul urban planners about the need to take into account all the impacts of a new town (for instance on traffic) from the earliest stages of the conception of a project, instead of trying to catch up and fix things after the delivery, and they said it would be nice if directions could work together to make that happen... When they do exist, impact studies are seldom comprehensive, which shouldn't come as a surprise when structural decisions regarding pharaonic projects can be made and unmade on impulse, ahead of a last minute press conference.

Yesterday, George W. Bush was invited for a few hours in Seoul to boost some real estate project. One could have expected a more relevant anti-real-estate-bubble lucky charm for Korea.

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* I didn't spare Seoul new towns either, including in my 2011 essay "Inhuman, all too human Seoul":
One megapolis, a hundred villages, a thousand faces
1)The industry of a dream - the ideal city
- Industrial revolution of housing: from the virtuous cycle to the bubble
- From mass market products to fashion and services, from utopia to dystopia
2) Humans in transit
- Communities and shared spaces
- Life and survival of Seoul villages
3) The Ideal City 2.0 and new utopias
- The end of an era, but not yet the end of the real estate dream
- From "hard city" to "soft city"
- From New Town to Human Town, villages are back in favour
Conclusion

** Geomdan, Gimpo Hangang, Dongtan 1, Dongtan 2, Pyeongtaek Godeok, Gwanggyo, Pangyo, Wirye, Yangju, Paju Unjeong

*** Sign of the times: today, in the paper, there was a leaflet for an apartment block from the "premium" brand everybody fought for just years ago. Now the sales pitch highlights the fact that the price tag is KRW 250 M below that of the neighborhood, and there's even a coupon to claim a gift if you visit the model house...

**** see "Pangyo from scratch to crash". Note that even if Pangyo New Town is becoming a laughingstock for urbanists, wealthy investors keep purchasing land around it to build their private mansions, the latest fad for a flock that previously migrated from Hannam-dong to Apgujeong-dong to Bundang. They'll probably join the lobby pushing for a new airport East of Seoul, the perfect vehicle to boost land value back to pre-bubble levels in a distressed area.

Magok District: SIM City as in "Seoul Intra Muros"? Alleyways as in "Seoul Inter Muros"?

I know, Gangnam Style is so 2012, and here we are, starting 2013 on the same side of the river.

Same side, but different neighborhood: Gangseo-gu doesn't look as sexy as PSY's lair, and the Lotte Mall Gimpo Airport as bling bling as Cheongdam-dong boutiques. Yet here as well, plastic surgery is underway on a grand scale.

Seoul's westernmost district is the place where I first set foot in Korea. In 1991, "Kimpo Airport" still ruled as Korea's main international gateway*, and since Seoul Subway Line 5 would only be inaugurated four years later, everybody reached the capital via the airport road (now Gonghang-daero); a rather unspectacular journey through a peri-urban to sub-urban landscape featuring fields, farms, scattered low-rise buildings, and one plastic dummy traffic cop supposed to scare the fast and the furious away.

Last spring, I taped this boring scene from a cab on the same road, but in the opposite direction:




Between Balsan Station and Songjeong Station (Subway Line 5), all you could see for 2 km were crane tops emerging behind these grey construction fences. Halfway, Magok Station remained closed. Like the yet-to-be-inaugurated Magongnaru Station, a couple of blocks to the north, on the parallel Seoul Subway Line 9 (between Yangcheon Hyanggyo Station and Sinbanghwa Station). The two ghost stations - three if you take into account the fact that Magongnaru is also on the AREX line - lie in the middle of the future Magok District, one of the biggest and least advertised urban developments in Seoul.

You would think a project covering 0.6% of the capital city (3.6 million square meters in Magok-dong and Gayang-dong) would get some attention, but Magok has been droning below the radar for years.

To be fair, there was a decent embryo of buzzlet back in 2005, when the MRC (Magok Research and Development City) was announced, and the buzzwords of the day thrown in for good measure ("green", "U-city", "hub", "international business complex", "knowlegde industry complex"...). As if local authorities had suddenly realized that they'd been sitting on a goldmine for too long, like: everybody's building a global hub in this country except us, and we've got this vast piece of land in Seoul intra muros, next to an international airport, with a unique air-water-land combo**. Let's build and they will come. All we have to do is to make sure we've got dwellings, businesses, industries, and a "Central Park" - foreigners love central parks. 

So everything was set: between 2007 and 2014, SH Corporation would erect yet another successful new town in the country of the perennial real estate miracle.

But even before Lehman hit the fan, no one seemed to care. Pangyo New Town was still the media darling, and Incheon city marketing Songdo, a similar concept on steroids: 6.1 M square meters vs 3.6, the sea vs the river, Incheon Airport vs Gimpo Airport, Gale Intl + Posco vs SH..., and an even bigger "Central Park".

We've already seen how Songdo struggled in the past***. And Magok District was not even the priority for Seoul Metropolitan Government, which had first to launch the Digital Media City, or more recently the International Finance Center (not to mention yet other fishes to fry, such as the Gongneung Future Industry Technology Complex).

But MRC was more than a mere background task. It had an important part to play in the Seoul 2020 Vision, and in 2008, an international design competition generated spectacular proposals for the future Magok Waterfront, reviving the hope to see things happen in spite of the gloomy context. Two years later, development plans had been revamped, paving the way for a more consistent construction kick-off in 2011. I really felt something big was coming last september, when I chatted with the head of Seoul Business Agency before the conference for the 10th anniversary of the DMC project****. He confirmed the city's determination for Magok, and his confidence seemed genuine.

Last November, Seoul Metropolitan City started offering parcels for Magok Industrial Complex: the future research hub (IT / Information Technology, BT / Bio Technology, GT / Green Technology, NT / Nano Technology...) will cover a fifth of the district and a 2007-2031 timeframe. Seven companies were later selected for further discussions, and the first really big media bang came on December 13, when LG Group signed for 6 of his research units and 14,000 researchers by 2020. Note that this chaebol had already been involved in this future "smart city" through its LG CNS subsidiary, designing a "Smart Green Control Center" in partnership with IBM.

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and E-Land were listed among the other hot prospects; not exactly poster boys for the above mentioned technologies, but very significant players nonetheless, particularly considering DSME's growing ambitions in defence. Now the focus is on signing an international player to confirm this excellent first draft.

Generally speaking, if you're into IT-media-telecom convergence, there are worst places in the world to open a R and D unit than this part of Seoul. Mapo's Digital Media City and the Guro Digital Industrial Complex are quite close, and the LG-SMG deal already includes at least two gems: LG Electronics and LG Display (these guys will probably meet their LG Telecom friends in the DMC more often than indie start-ups in Guro but that's their problem).

Note that in the fierce coopetition among major business hubs in Korea and particularly across Sudogwon region (Seoul - Incheon - Gyeonggi-do), the "Seoul Intra Muros" dimension in itself has become again a key factor of differenciation, particularly to recruit talents who would rather stay in the capital than move to a distant "greenfield new town". E-Land highlighted this HR premium in its own Magok's plus column... where "cost of land" certainly ranks higher than "culture" (with all respect due to Yangcheon Hyanggyo).

I won't repeat my usual pitch about the non-zero-sum-game of Korean new towns (see for instance "Wet eyes for wetlands and urban mirages"), but we're not just talking about business here. People will live and breathe in Magok District, not just work. There's enough space and time to get it right, and I'd like Magok to achieve something different, something more ambitious in the noble sense of the term than the DMC which, architecturally and street-wise, could almost be any business district in any big city. 

On this rendering where Seoul Housing Corporation mercifully banned very high rise buildings and added more green (BTW will they dare destroy the beautiful tree line that somewhat managed to survive in the video above?), Magok District almost looks like any New Town:

Even more so when you look at the ad:

Guess what: Seoul is not a new town. Furthermore, a neighborhood needs a soul of its own, must belong to a certain continuum, and souldn't be overly scripted: if urban planners do all the storytelling, how can citizens hear their own voices, write their own stories?

And Seoul needs alleyways. By "alleyways", I don't necessarily mean the last capillaries irrigating the actual "Seoul Intra Muros" ("Sadaemun", the original city surrounded by its fortress), but also the kind of inclusions that extend Seoul, the places where the city can freely and randomly stretch, grow more complex, and reach deeper, these intimate scars where your own mind can't help but wander.

This so special "Seoul Inter Muros".


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* The earthwork was just starting for the merger of the two islands that would eventually host Incheon Airport (we used a ferry to reach them and a bus to go all the way to Eunwangni). Reminder: Gimpo Airport is not in Gimpo city, Gyeonggi-do, but within Seoul limits, in Gangseo-gu, a district that happens to border both Gimpo and Incheon cities (not to mention Bucheon and - via the Banghwa Bridge - Goyang, also in Gyeonggi-do).
** Air: Gimpo Airport / Water: Han River + a vertical streamlet potentially upgradable into a marina or else / Land: SW Gyeonggi and Incheon entry point + major highways + Olympic Expressway + Subways...
*** and succeeded as well (see "Songdo on the world map (Green Climate Fund)", and all posts related to Songdo)
**** about this event, see "Korean culture or Hallyu, Cultural contents or discontents"

Seoul-Incheon canal

Since his reelection (see "OH Se-hoon V2.0"), the Mayor of Seoul has been constantly struggling with an opposition-dominated city council*.

The mother of all battles ? School meals : the DP voted to make them free for all elementary school students regardless of familial revenues, but OH wanted a fairer welfare system redistributing more to the poor. Note that in France, political parties opposing free meals for all are generally left leaning, but Korea is obviously a different story. Anyway, to undo the change, the Mayor collected 800,000 signatures from Seoul citizens, well over the 400,000 or so needed. Still, he's now ready to jeopardize his political future in a referendum on the issue.

But officially, OH Se-hoon is less interested in the road to Cheong Wa Dae than in the Seoul-Incheon canal, a new battlefield for which he is even willing to end his boycott of city council meetings.

Officially called Gyeongin Canal, the project connects Incheon with Gimpo, but OH wants boats to continue all the way to Yeouido, where he plans to build a port (bridges also have to be renovated in the process). In his words : the government already set the table, Seoul just has to put its own dishes to enjoy the meal.

What's on the menu ? Among other delicacies, cruise ships loaded with Chinese tourists. Increasingly hopping from hub to hub across the whole region (Incheon, Busan, Fukuoka...), they don't pay hotel rooms, but can be taxed for each night... Freight also represents a big business, and road traffic between the Port of Incheon and the Capital could be considerably reduced.

Incheon (then Jemulpo) was chosen for good reasons : it's the perfect landing spot, and not just for McArthur. If you take a map, the Han river reaches the Yellow Sea near Ganghwa island following a trickier path and furthermore, it is now the frontier with North Korea (these days, you never know who's shooting whom in this area).

You've probably already seen the Gyeongin Canal on the way from or to Incheon Airport : that's the huge construction site parallel to the highway (North). The project was stalled for years but has been revived about two years ago, when the Four Great Rivers project gained momentum. And like with the whole Sa Dae Gang project, the environmental debate is far from over.

But even if this project happens to fold, you can always ride a boat for just KRW 4,000 per hour in the recently inaugurated Seoul Marina. Or join Mangwon Hangang Park by ferry with your bike for just KRW 1,000.

Hey, Hangang Renaissance is not just hype after all.

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* not always for the worse - I'm glad some of his pet projects were axed : see "The fastuous and the furious : trimming down Seoul city's most embarrassing projects"

Seoul Subway Line 9

The long expected Seoul Subway Line 9 (Gimpo Airport - Bangi-dong) has eventually been inaugurated on July the 24th, 2009.

Basically, the new line draws a perfect big smile under the pure Offenbach moustache of the Hangang :
- the fist section inaugurated Friday (25 stations out of 37) stretches from Gaehwa Station (Gimpo Car Depot in Gaehwa-dong) to ShinNonhyeon Station (on Bongeunsa-ro, near the Ritz Carlton Hotel), connects with all North / South lines, focuses on major business hubs (Gimpo Airport, Yeouido, Express Bus Terminal, Gangnam-gu), and of course improves public transportation coverage, most noticeably in Gangseo-gu.
- a second effort will connect line 9 with line 2 at the Jamsil Sports Complex (5 more stations), and
- a final (?) tail shall reach the frontier with Hanam city (not before 2015)

Line 9 starts in Ganseo-gu by completing a loop around Gimpo Airport with Line 5 : both lines connect at Gimpo Airport Station itself (where they meet the A'REX train, which leads to Incheon Airport) and backstage, there is a direct link between Banghwa car depot and Gimpo Car Depot. Line 9 creates two stations West and East of Gimpo Airport Station : respectively Gaehwa Station and Airport Market Station.

After that, the new line darts towards its next hub, Yeouido, mainly along Yangcheon-gil, a big street parallel to the river. Filling the big gap North of Line 5, it drops a lot of new stations on the way : Sinbanghwa, Magongnaru (to be connected to AREX), Yangcheon Hyanggyo, Gayang, Jeungmi, Deungchon, Yeomchang, Sinmokdong, and Seonyudo.

At Dangsan Station, Line 9 starts connecting with all the lines linking Gangbuk and Gangnam (both sides of the river) :
- Line 2 at Dangsan Station
(1 new station between Dangsan and Yeouido : National Assembly)
- Line 5 at Yeouido Station
(1 new station between Yeouido and Noryangjin : Saetgang Station - the island is now fully covered with 4 stations forming a cross between lines 5 and 9)
- Line 1 at Noryangjin Station
(2 new stations between Noryangjin and Dongjak : Nodeul and Heukseok / Chung-Ang University - NB: Noryangjin area is under renovation well beyond the market with a major newtown)
- Line 4 at Dongjak Station
(2 new stations between Dongjak and Express Bus Terminal : Gubanpo and Sinbanpo)
- Line 3 and Line 7 at Express Bus Terminal Station (more than ever a key hub)
(2 new stations after EBT: Sapyeong and Sinnonhyeon)

In its further developments, Line 9 will keep following Bongeunsa-ro between the parallel lines 2 and 7, until it connects with the former at Sports Complex Station. That's an area dense with hotels which for sure will benefit from a direct connection to Seoul airports. The four new stations between Sinnonhyeon and Sports Complex will be Samjeong, Samneung, Bongeunsa, and COEX.

Note that Samneung Station will also belong to the Bundang Line, another strategic North / South axis between Wangshimni and Suwon. The bulk of that line is already operational, between nearby Seollung Station and far away Bojeong Station (in Yongin city). The Wangshimni-Seollung section seems to be proceeding well, visibly with the help of many Cambodian workers : I noticed bilingual Korean-Cambodian signs on the construction sites at Seongsu / Seoul Forest. By the way : Wangshimni, surrounded with its new towns, will become a major transportation hub, with new connections to Seoul Station and future Gyeonggi-do express train systems.

But let's move back to our Line 9. After Jamsil Sports Complex, it should snake its way NorthEastwards, in the direction of Hanam city, filling some gaps in Songpa-gu subway network and establishing new connections. The last 7 stations shall be : Jamsil, Samjeon, Seokchon (connection with Line 8), Songpa (not far from Mongchontoseong Station - Line 8), Bangi, Olympic Park (connection with Line 5), and Oryun.

Overall, Seoul's extended metropolitan network keeps growing new tentacles at a very interesting pace. I was used to a Seoul with 4 subway lines plus the old Korail network, and after a spectacular boom during the 90s, densification seems now well advanced. Other cities grow new lines, connect to each other. Songdo stations just opened on time for the Incheon Festival.

Many areas remain poorly served, but light trains are also multiplying. Sometimes at a price : this week-end, five people were killed in Uijeongbu as a steel frame collapse during the construction of a light train bridge. Line 9 remains underground except for its first station.


NB: Line 9 is neither operated by Seoul Metropolitan Subway Co nor by Seoul Metropolitan Rail Transit Co, nor by Korail, but by a new and dedicated structure operated by Veolia Transport (website metro9.co.kr not in English version yet).