hankyoreh

A view of central Seoul

“The South Korean government will be pushing ahead more forcefully with balanced national development policies that are more advanced than those of the Roh Moo-hyun administration.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in shared this message at a February 2018 ceremony at the Sejong Conventional Center in Sejong to proclaim a balanced national development vision and strategy. Seven months later in September, Lee Hae-chan, leader of the Democratic Party, announced in a speech as a National Assembly negotiation group representative that an additional 122 public institutions would be relocated outside of the Greater Seoul area – joining the 153 relocated to Sejong and 10 “innovation cities” during the Roh administration. But neither the administration nor the ruling party had yet come out with any more forceful balanced development policies than the Roh administration’s or plans for a second relocation of public institutions.

Projected percentage of South Korea’s population in the Greater Seoul area

It has now emerged that the percentage of South Korea’s population living in the Greater Seoul area is set to cross the 50% mark for the first time in history around September of this year. It’s an increasingly extreme manifestation of a skewed phenomenon where over half of all South Koreans live in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi Province – which together represent just 11.8% of South Korea’ total area of 100,387 square kilometers. The issue is not only about population: the Greater Seoul area previously passed the 50% mark in terms of gross production in 2017. That percentage had previously been reduced from 49.5% in 2002 to 48.2% in 2011 through bold balanced development policies by the Roh administration, but the situation reversed itself under the later Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations as balanced development policies were halted and regulations on Greater Seoul were loosened.

“During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, vigorous balanced development policies were used as a way of bridging the gap between Greater Seoul and the provinces, but the effects have been diminishing as the balanced development policies of subsequent administration have failed to meet expectations,” explained Park Jae-yul, representative of the group National Solidarity for Decentralization, adding that a “general situation of polarization between Greater Seoul and the provinces has become severely evident in spatial terms.”

The reason for the increase in Greater Seoul’s population stems from a growing inflow into the region. Since liberation, net migration from the provinces to Greater Seoul had been positive every year apart from the period of the Korean War. Since the Roh administration, net population migrations to the provinces have occurred in 2011 and between the years 2013 and 2016. Since 2017, however, that trend has reversed once again, with a net influx of 59,797 to the Greater Seoul area recorded in 2018. Gyeonggi Province in particular experienced an influx of 170,094 people, representing the largest nationwide; indeed, the province has held down the top spot for net population gain among South Korea’s metropolitan cities and provinces since 1989. The rapid burgeoning of Gyeonggi’s population over the past 30 years has been a consequence of the massive city of Seoul expanding beyond its administrative boundaries.

Experts pointed to an intensifying trend of young people from the provinces flocking to Greater Seoul for university education and employment. Kim Hyeong-gi, an emeritus professor in the Kyungpook National University School of Economic and Trade who served on the Presidential Committee for Balanced National Development during the Roh administration, explained, “With the weak base for economic activity and the poor cultural infrastructure in the provinces, it is inevitable that young people would end up flocking to Seoul.”

“The large percentage of young people flowing into Greater Seoul from the population of the provinces is becoming part of a vicious cycle of local decline and destruction,” Kim said.

With the Moon administration now carrying on Roh’s mantle, experts called on it to pursue resolute measures.

“It’s time to establish a balanced national development strategy that is full-scale and comprehensive for the intermediate and long term,” said Park Jae-yul.

“Reviving regions needs to be viewed as a priority, central governance task in the development of policies. Beyond simply the level of industries and the economy, we need three-dimensional policies involving welfare, culture, and services,” he urged.