![Sample our Urban Studies journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110826/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Urban-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
By examining South Korea’s urban renewal regime in the 1960s, this paper sheds light on hitherto underexplored transpacific connections in the history of urban renewal. The period in question is crucial in that both Washington and Seoul came to regard urban space as a means to maintain an anti-communist regional order, which prefigured major urban transformations in South Korea for the decades that followed. With a focus on the circulation of technologies of governing urban space through particular forms of urban renewal, this paper shows that urban renewal in the mid-twentieth century illuminates the function of three interrelated phenomena during the period: (1) the formation of the transpacific network of power and knowledge; (2) the establishment of legal, financial, and symbolic grounds on which the ideal of homeownership could operate; and (3) the transport of what I call infrastructures of displacement. In doing so, this paper suggests a way of looking at urban renewal in the mid-century as the geopolitical project of disseminating ideas, norms, and technologies of governing cities during the Cold War.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Sujin Eom is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography at Dartmouth College. Eom received a PhD in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies.
Notes
1 David Steinberg, “Urban Planning: Project Proposal,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-676, Hoover Institution Archives, August 21, 1964. My italics.
2 Castillo, Cold War on the Home Front; Ward, “Transnational Planners in a Postcolonial World”; Hein, “The Exchange of Planning Ideas from Europe to the USA after the Second World War.”
3 Sneddon, Concrete Revolution.
4 Kim and Jung, “The Planning of Microdistricts in Post-War North Korea.”
5 Eom, “Traveling Chinatowns.”
6 Bishop, “Talking Shop.”
7 Wakeman, “Rethinking Postwar Planning History.”
8 Goldstein, “Planning’s End?,” 401.
9 Ammon, Bulldozer.
10 Klemek, The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal, 5.
11 Kwak, A World of Homeowners.
12 Mohr, Plague and Fire.
13 Gupta, “Is Poverty a Global Security Threat?”
14 Roy, Schrader, and Crane, “Grey Areas.”
15 Han, Manju modŏn.
16 Larkin, “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure,” 329.
17 Simone, “People as Infrastructure”; Nemser, Infrastructures of Race.
18 Graham and Marvin, Splintering Urbanism.
19 Lie, Han Unbound.
20 Norton, “Planning with Facts.”
21 Blum, “The Work of The Asia Foundation,” 47.
22 Brazinsky, “Koreanizing Modernization.”
23 David Steinberg, “Urban Planning: Project Proposal,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-676, Hoover Institution Archives, August 21, 1964.
24 Shatkin, “Planning to Forget.”
25 Steinberg, “Urban Planning: Project Proposal,” my italics.
26 Robert S. Schwantes, “Korea Project Proposal: Urban Planning,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-676, Hoover Institution Archives, September 22, 1964.
27 Armstrong, “‘Fraternal Socialism.’”
28 Pai, “Modernism, Development, and the Transformation of Seoul.”
29 Jeon, “A Road to Modernization and Unification.”
30 Lie, Han Unbound.
31 Pai, “Modernism,” 119–120.
32 Son, Sŏul tosi kyehoek iyagi.
33 David Steinberg, “Letter of Agreement,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-779, Hoover Institution Archives, October 22, 1963.
34 David Steinberg, “Letter of Transmittal,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-67, Hoover Institution Archives, January 23, 1964.
35 David Stenberg, “Letter of Agreement: Prof. Cha Il-suk, Yonsei University, February 2, 1965,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-240, Hoover Institution Archives, March 11, 1965; William McDougal, “Report from Prof. Cha Il-suk and Mr. Park Dong-yun,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-480, Hoover Institution Archives, June 14, 1965.
36 “Too Much Emphasis on Roads.” The Korea Times, July 8, 1964.
37 Oswald Nagler, “Urban Planning in Korea: A Report to the Asia Foundation, Seoul,” Asia Foundation, Box P-280, Folder: KO-SX-612, Hoover Institution Archives, 1964a, 11.
38 Oswald Nagler, “Urban Planning in Korea: A Report to the Asia Foundation, Seoul,” Asia Foundation, Box P-280, Folder: KO-SX-612, Hoover Institution Archives, 1964b, 3, my emphasis.
39 For detailed information on the formation of HURPI, see Jung, “Oswald Nagler, HURPI, and the Formation of Urban Planning and Design in South Korea.”
40 William McDougal, “Report of Japan Tour by Mayor of Taegu,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-491, Hoover Institution Archives, June 16, 1965.
41 David Steinberg, “Project-Proposal: Urban Planning in Seoul,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-659, Hoover Institution Archives, June 23, 1966.
42 Ibid.
43 David J. Robinson, “Visit of Mayor Kim Hyung-ok to San Francisco,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-510, Hoover Institution Archives, November 23, 1966.
44 David J. Robinson, “Visit of Mayor KIM Hyun-ok to Washington and New York,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-4, Hoover Institution Archives, January 4, 1967.
45 Robert E. Levine, “Seoul Mayor’s Observation Tour,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-841, Hoover Institution Archives, August 10, 1966.
46 Steinberg, “Project-Proposal.”
47 Ernest M. Howell, “Visit of the Mayor of Seoul and Party,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: unnumbered, Hoover Institution Archives, December 30, 1966.
48 Ibid.
49 Oswald Nager, “Conversation with Mr. Lee Mun-yung, Ministry of Construction,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: unnumbered, Hoover Institution Archives, April 7, 1966.
50 Steinberg, “Project-Proposal.”
51 Ibid.
52 Hyun-ok Kim, “Saeroun tosi hwan'gyŏng ŭi t'ansaeng ŭl wihayŏ,” Konggan, September, 1967, 28–29.
53 The Bank of Korea, “Urinara ui chutaek kumyung kaeyo.”
54 “Chu 1gagu 1chutaek mokpyo,” Kyunghyang Shimnun, March 27, 1967; “4hoe chutaekjon 10ilkkaji chung’ang gongbogwan,” Dong-A Ilbo, January 22, 1967.
55 Cha, Yŏngwŏnhan kkŭm, 83.
56 Ibid., 155.
57 “Muho panjajip ul happophwa,” Dong-A Ilbo, January 22, 1967.
58 “Sky apatu jun’gong,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, December 30, 1968.
59 Jung, Kwon and Rowe, “The Minimum Dwelling Approach by the Housing, Urban and Regional Planning Institute (HURPI) of South Korea in the 1960s.”
60 Seoul Metropolitan Government, An Outline of the Preliminary Master Plan, 18.
61 Horwitz, Evaluation of Planning and Development in Seoul.
62 Ibid., 18.
63 “Kumhwa chigu gasu mubangbi shimin apatu.” Dong-A Ilbo, January 22, 1970.
64 Ye-Yong Chun. “Dear Dr. Williams,” Asia Foundation, Box P-281, Folder: KO-SX-612, Hoover Institution Archives, September 15, 1964.
65 Chang, “Reischauer.”
66 Park, “The Roles of the United States and Japan in the Development of South Korea’s Science and Technology during the Cold War.”
67 Jung, “Oswald Nagler.”
68 Park, “A Study on Mortgage Instruments.”
69 “Shimin apatu do chaesanse choum bugwa,” Dong-A Ilbo, May 12, 1976.
70 Zipp and Carriere, “Introduction,” 360.
71 Choi, “Kim Hyŏn-ok sijang ŭi sŏul tosisajŏk ŭiŭi,” 243.
72 AlSayyad and Eom, “Bottom-Down Urbanism.”
73 Anderson, The Federal Bulldozer, xix.
74 Ibid., 219.