[Choi Jun-young's Urban Pilgrimage] Conditions for a Future-Oriented New Town

[Image source=Yonhap News]

President Moon Jae-in mentioned in his New Year's address that the focus would be on expanding supply and providing more housing, sparking various opinions. The best pure method to increase housing supply would be the construction of large-scale new towns developed in areas other than existing residential zones.

Reconstruction and redevelopment, which involve demolishing existing houses and building new ones, have a significant effect on improving living conditions but offer limited increases in the total number of houses. Of course, the houses supplied through reconstruction and redevelopment are preferred by people, so they do effectively increase housing supply.

Creating a new city may sound natural to us, but it is actually not a common case worldwide. It is rare to find examples of continuously developing new towns over 30 years, in 10-year intervals.

In Korea, 'new towns' are taken for granted, but there is no suitable English expression to translate this. Generally, it is translated as 'new town,' but a town refers to a smaller administrative unit than a city, so it differs from the concept of a new city. The new towns familiar to us might be a unique product of the Republic of Korea.

When the economy grows and the population increases, housing demand also rises. Accordingly, housing prices increase, which is a common phenomenon in any country. After World War II, major countries in the US and Europe also developed large-scale new residential areas to meet the surge in housing demand.

Eunpyeong New Town Panorama

However, such attempts weakened around the mid-1970s. One reason is the decreased preference for apartment-style multi-family housing and the residential areas formed by them. In Sweden, for example, a plan to supply one million housing units over ten years from the mid-1960s was implemented but was not favored due to low quality and monotonous forms.

Since the 1990s, Korea has undertaken two large-scale new town development projects. Recently, the third phase of new town construction is underway. The continuation of new town projects is possible because new towns have continuously created preferred demand by actively reflecting socioeconomic changes.

The expansion of automobile ownership starting in the late 1980s increased the need for wide roads and convenient parking spaces. New towns centered on apartments could elicit a strong response by providing a grid-pattern wide road network and parking spaces that seemed sufficient at the time.

Moreover, the futuristic image, which had not been experienced before, contributed greatly. At a time when the concept of parks was unfamiliar, large and small parks were systematically arranged, and large-scale parks were created in key areas. Additionally, the concept of safe commuting was introduced, allowing elementary school students to travel safely without crossing major roads.

Although it seems natural now, new towns 30 years ago realized a futuristic vision that was hard to imagine. This experience should be applied to the third phase of new towns as well. It requires a forward-looking approach that looks decades ahead, not just viewing current problems from the present perspective and standards.

On the 20th, the "Hoban Summit Songpa" promotional center in Wirye New Town, which opened at the Hoban Construction headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul, is bustling with visitors. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Among future trends, the most core and important is electrification, where the use and importance of electricity will dramatically increase. Electricity, which was once limited to lighting, is gradually expanding into heating, cooling, and cooking. Demand for electricity is also expanding to mobility, represented by electric vehicles.

The expansion of electricity demand requires infrastructure construction different from the past. By securing infrastructure that can meet future demand and preparing for the increase in power demand, the space can continue to be preferred in the future.

A bold approach is also needed for low carbon and energy saving to respond to climate change. Cities and buildings, along with the power generation and industrial sectors, are among Korea's major carbon emission sources. However, carbon reduction in these areas has been very limited.

Carbon emission reduction is achieved through decreased energy use and improved efficiency. Higher standards than existing insulation and energy criteria should be applied to newly constructed apartments, ultimately guiding construction toward zero houses that can be heated and cooled without external energy input.

New towns should become places for new forms of energy use that move away from fossil energy bases. Not only the spread of renewable energy such as solar power and energy storage systems (ESS) but also the active adoption of hydrogen fuel cells that can produce both electricity and heat should reduce dependence on external energy. Along with this, building a direct current (DC) distribution network that can use renewable energy produced without complex conversion processes is also a task worth attempting.

These tasks may seem like matters for the distant future, but 30 years pass quickly. Looking back at the first phase new towns approaching 30 years, it is clear that efforts were made to prepare for the future. Despite the urgent task of large-scale housing supply and a weak economy with a per capita income of only $5,000, cities were planned and developed in a short time anticipating and responding to future changes, fulfilling their roles to this day.

The newly developed third phase new towns should also overcome the fear of uncharted paths and plan and develop with a view to the more distant future beyond the current problem of soaring housing prices.

Choi Jun-young, Specialist, Law Firm Yulchon

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.