[Jihye Choi's Trend 2024] Hip Neighborhoods Have Their Own Persona

100 Cities, 100 Identities
The Need for an Irreplaceable "Something of Our Own"
Neighborhoods Like Seongsu-dong Attract Crowds
"Signature Stores" as Core Competencies
An Elegant U-turn Solution for Regions Facing Extinction

"In Hannam-dong, you have to wear ‘Mardi Mercredi,’ and in Hongdae, you have to wear ‘Thisisneverthat.’"

This is something I recently heard from students. The minimalist design of the brand image suits Hannam-dong, while the street sensibility of Thisisneverthat matches the neighborhood vibe of Hongdae. In a similar vein, there is also this saying: "In Anguk-dong, you have to wear a jacket, and in Seongsu-dong, even in midsummer, you have to wear long boots and a flowy dress." Anguk-dong has many restaurants and cafes built with a hanok (traditional Korean house) concept, so wearing a jacket or shirt makes for better photos, and in Seongsu-dong, to fit the hip vibe, a stylish Bohemian look is recommended. To exaggerate a bit, it is impossible to spend a day going from Seongsu-dong to Hongdae and then to Anguk-dong because each neighborhood has different brands and a kind of ‘dress code’ that you must follow.

The neighborhoods wear their own style. The unique ‘persona’ of a neighborhood evolves from the content that can only be experienced there, the restaurants you can eat at, and the characteristics of the people who gather. Originally, ‘persona’ referred to the masks worn by actors in ancient Greece. In consumer studies, it refers to the detailed and accurate description of the target customer by asking, "Who would use this new product or service?" Applied to cities, a city persona can be defined as the lifestyle, interests, values, tastes, and consumption behaviors that become sharp and form a unique identity, whether intentionally or not, within that city.

The fact that neighborhoods have personas implies two things.

First, the criteria for distinguishing regions from a consumption perspective have changed. In the past, neighborhoods were divided by class along a vertical axis?rich neighborhoods versus poor neighborhoods?but now a horizontal criterion is emerging. For example, neighborhoods oriented toward street culture, regions practicing sustainable lifestyles, or cities advocating Bohemian values?each can have differentiated cultures and content. Street culture and Bohemian values are not vertically related; they are just different ‘styles.’ This means that cities are no longer perceived hierarchically but are recognized by their style.

Second, in a similar context, the unit by which people recognize regions is becoming smaller. For example, Seongsu-dong is more famous than Gangdong-gu, and Yeonmujang-gil is mentioned more than Seongsu-dong, or people know Gyeongui Line Forest Road but do not know it is in Mapo-gu. A city planning expert once described this as "feeling like there are 100 Seouls within Seoul." Consumers no longer perceive cities by the administrative hierarchy of city-district-neighborhood but recognize small streets or representative images based on qualitative characteristics. This means that even within Seongsu-dong, not all parts are the same. An Instagram account introducing various neighborhood contents of Seongsu called ‘Jerebak’s Seongsu Textbook’ once posted an interesting photo: Seoul Forest is the Seongsu-dong where people go for coffee, Ttukseom is the Seongsu-dong where people go for drinks, Seongsu-gugil is the Seongsu-dong where people go to break down old shops, and Songjeong-dong is the Seongsu-dong that makes you ask, "Is this really Seongsu-dong?" This shows how Seongsu-dong is subdivided into several branches.

Behind this phenomenon is the change in consumption style toward ‘purpose-driven visits.’ Since the early 2010s, the hotel industry has used the term ‘destination hotel.’ Destination, as a noun, means a place to arrive or a destination, and as an adjective, it means ‘something people specifically seek out.’ A destination hotel means ‘a hotel that itself becomes the purpose of the trip’?traveling to stay at a particular hotel, where the hotel is the center of the journey rather than just part of it. A similar phenomenon is observed in regional consumption. People do not visit a region just to go to a restaurant there; rather, the restaurant itself becomes the ‘purpose’ of visiting that region.

From this perspective, in neighborhoods that are recently gaining popularity, ‘signature stores’ that attract people are emerging as core competencies. Many people cite the start of Seongsu-dong’s revival as the ‘Daerim Warehouse’ and the caf? ‘Onion.’ With the success of these two signature stores, the formula for hot places became preserving the factory and warehouse structures while varying the content inside the buildings. Tap-dong in Jeju Island is also noteworthy. With brands pursuing long-life design like ‘D&Department,’ Kolon Sport’s eco-friendly project space ‘Sotsot Reverse,’ and ‘Project Bathhouse,’ which uses an abandoned bathhouse as a showroom, the street itself has acquired a ‘style’ of ‘regeneration.’

"100 cities must have 100 identities."

For a neighborhood to wear a persona ultimately means finding ‘our own thing’ that cannot be replaced by other regions. As the crisis of regional extinction rapidly approaches, what is the identity of our neighborhood and region? This is the first question that must be answered for the elegant U-turn of declining cities.

Choi Ji-hye, Research Fellow, Consumer Trend Analysis Center, Seoul National University

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