[Citizen College Season 2] Urban Redevelopment and Gentrification

On November 30, 2018, the seventh lecture of “Citizen College Season 2: Complex conflict and reconciliation of Korean Society” was held by the Seongbuk Village Citizenship Education Center and the Korea University Peace and Democracy Institute (PDI). The seventh speaker was Professor Gyu Jeong Lee of PDI.

In the lecture titled “Urban Redevelopment and Gentrification,” the speaker explained what is gentrification and how it is happening in Korea. Gentrification is a phenomenon in which the quality of housing is enhanced by the middle class who entered the low-income residential area, and the social characteristics of the residential area are completely changed as the existing worker residents suffer involuntary migration. Though the original urban residential area had been changed in the past, the target of exclusion is diversifying these days. Especially, the gentrification is spreading from residents to merchant occupants such as commercial tenants. The process the gentrification is divided into five steps as follows. Stage 1: Formation of cheap area by unbalanced development of the city → Stage 2: Establishment of Avant-garde group (e.g.: artist) or small self-employed shops pursuing low rent → Stage 3: Revival of the local commercial area due to the increasing number of people who are attracted to unique local identity → Step 4: Large-scale franchisees enter, and the concentration of speculative capital occur (surge of real estate prices and rent) → Step 5: Local identity is lost and slumming is happened. This kind of gentrification is a structural problem of capitalism, not just for some people in a certain area, but for anyone who is engaged in economic activity. Therefore, the lecturer emphasized that the system should be supplemented and changed in order to prevent gentrification. (Summary: Eun-bi Lee)