First thoughts

With the new year comes a new blog. I will be using this space to record ideas, link articles, and keep track of my experiences researching urban design in Seoul. My primary focus is on urban design for elderly and disabled citizens, including the ongoing movement towards a “barrier-free city” (장애물 없는 도시) and the spread of universal design. However, anything urban planning or design-related in Seoul is fair game!

When I tell people that I studied urban planning in college, one of the first questions I usually get is “So, what do you think of Seoul?” The best I can reply in my awkward Korean is that Seoul is a huge, busy city with some nice areas. After living in Seoul for the past few months (and, admittedly, not being especially brave in exploring the city) I think I can elaborate a bit further. These are some first impressions on the urban form of Seoul:

• Seoul is a very, very large city, and the best way to describe its form is “dense sprawl.” The problems faced by housing experts, transportation planners, environmentalists, and designers go well beyond the problems of American cities. People are accustomed to living in multi-unit housing, relying on (and expecting) quality public transportation, and certainly do not take any open space for granted. Unfortunately, even with a vast public transit network and numerous high-capacity roads (8 lanes in both directions, anyone?) congestion remains a perennial problem. Space, rather than distance or sprawl, is a primary constraint here.
• Because of this density, Seoul is a vertical city, with a variety of uses within each building. Mixed-use is the norm, with small commercial use occupying most ground-level and underground spaces, and offices and residences dominating the higher floors. In neighborhoods developed in the mid-20th century, most everyday amenities like grocery shopping and pharmacies are within walking distance from the home. However, high-rise housing developments and large, enclosed shopping centers continue to replace older neighborhoods. Some of these newer buildings contain a variety of uses within (e.g. office space, medical care, restaurants, grocery shopping, hair salons) but are also much less permeable to pedestrians from the outside. Access is instead oriented to automobiles.
• Speaking of which, automobiles continue to dominate the landscape, despite recent efforts to create pedestrian-friendly streets. Major arterial roads are very wide, wait-times for pedestrian walk signals average several minutes, and drivers assume right-of-way in most situations. Crossing the street can be dangerous, particularly if you do not walk at the pace of a healthy adult. An abundance of engineered solutions to pedestrian safety issues (bridges, underground walkways, guardrails along sidewalks, bollards to block car entry to sidewalks, etc.) is gradually giving way to more traditional crosswalks and traffic-calming techniques, which is great news for the mobility-challenged, or really, anyone who enjoys a safe walking environment.
• On a brighter note, car parking is relegated to underground lots or strictly controlled short-term curbside spaces. The premium on above-ground real estate means one rarely has to brave a quarter-mile of parking lot on their way to the store.
• Seoul is hilly! In addition to the numerous mountains that bound and define the edges of the city, the hilly terrain that covers most of the city requires the average citizen to develop a strong set of legs (If the History Channel’s Human Weapon is to be believed, this is what prompted the development of kicking-focused Taekwondo). Housing and college campuses tend to be on the sides of hills, some quite steep, and there seems to be little enthusiasm for the kind of terraforming that flattened most of the original Boston peninsula in the 18th and 19th centuries. This allows for a variety of street configurations, variable architecture, and some spectacular views, but also presents barriers to mobility. Stairs are ubiquitous, and old, steep stairways carry personal significance and charm, but their shortcomings are evident on a blazing-hot day while you’re battling a knee injury.
• As in most non-American cities, street addresses are not arranged in a Cartesian scheme, and houses are often numbered in order of construction rather than spatial order. Navigating to new places requires directions based on visible landmarks, rather than a street map and address. The overall readability of the city is thus very important, and Seoul is both blessed and cursed by form. Narrow and curvy neighborhood streets have a lot of character, making them easier to remember; they also block view of taller regional landmarks and disorient those traveling through. High-rise apartment blocks require names and numbers printed boldly on the side of each building to be remotely navigable. Citizens understand Seoul as a collection of districts, rather than a system of paths and nodes, and their images of the city are quite patchy as a result.

More than anything, Seoul is a city in rapid flux. Entire neighborhoods are disappearing as large residential and commercial developments stake their territory in older parts of the city. A new generation of planners is trying to embrace multiple images of Seoul’s future: business center, design mecca, high-tech capital, transportation hub, green city, tourist attraction, etc. The impulse to specialize and create identities fragments the city and threatens that which makes any city compelling: spontaneous order, connection with the past, local idiosyncrasies, healthy counterculture.