Seoul seeks more humane urban experience

By Barbara Demick Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Thu Oct 13, 9:40 AM ET

On hazy days, this city looks like nothing so much as a bowl of poured concrete topped by a noxious yellow cloud. The surrounding mountainsides have been blasted away to build grim slabs of high-rise apartments with the names of the conglomerates Samsung or Hyundai stamped on them.

After being destroyed during the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul was slapped back together in the 1960s and 1970s. The mantra of the time was: Do it fast, do it cheap.

Now one of the people responsible for paving over the city is trying to make amends.

And if anyone can do it, Lee Myung Bak can--he's the mayor. As chief executive officer of Hyundai in the 1970s and 1980s, Lee was responsible for much of the company's work in rebuilding Seoul, going about it with such tenacity that he was nicknamed "the Bulldozer."

Emerging from ruins

"You have to remember, in the 1960s and 1970s, we were just starting to rise above the ruins of war. You couldn't find a skyscraper in the whole country; there were few cars," the 63-year-old mayor said.

"We built cookie-cutter buildings. The only concern was getting as many people as possible into as little space. We now find ourselves regretting some of the choices we made back then."

Topping the list of architectural atrocities was a 3 1/2-mile-long elevated highway that was built (largely by Hyundai) on top of what had been a stream. Two years ago, Lee had the highway demolished to restore the Cheonggye waterway.

The water pumps were switched on in June, and a gurgling brook now runs through the concrete jungle of Seoul's central business district. The $330 million restoration, which was formally marked with a huge celebration featuring fireworks and concerts this month, includes fountains, sculptures and 22 bridges in various fanciful styles. One resembles a tall-masted ship; another the spread wings of a silvery bird.

The list of ambitious public works projects goes on.

Lee wants to turn the 630-acre U.S. military base called Yongsan, scheduled to be vacated by the end of 2007, into Seoul's version of Central Park. He wants to build a new opera house too.

Over the summer, a former golf course and racetrack reopened as a park and wildlife sanctuary, stocked with elk, ducks, squirrels and six species of deer.

In front of City Hall, Lee ripped out a vast oval of concrete and ordered it planted with grass--"Mayor Lee's front lawn" is how some residents derided it.

On a recent day, two boys were doing cartwheels on the grass outside the mayor's office. Inside, in a conference room of plush blue chairs, the mayor reflected on the changing city.

"In the 1960s, the environment took a back seat to economics," said Lee, a slim, impeccable man with an elf-like quality about him. "In the 21st Century, the priorities have shifted."

With the possible exceptions of Israel and Taiwan, it is hard to point to another country that has developed as rapidly as South Korea in the last half-century. As South Koreans of Lee's generation like to emphasize, the country was one of the poorest on Earth at the end of the Korean War; today it is the 11th-largest economy in the world.

But the aesthetics of the capital haven't quite caught up to its new-found economic stature.

In a style befitting the military dictatorship that ruled until the 1980s, modern-day Seoul was designed with huge boulevards on which the ruling elite could drive in comfort. Hapless pedestrians were forced to find their way like moles through circuitous underpasses.

Today, the mayor is trying to overturn this hierarchy--bringing the pedestrians back above ground. In a move applauded by South Korea's elderly and disabled, he has built dozens of crosswalks in downtown Seoul.

He is also trying to bring Seoul's car population under control. There are an estimated 2 million cars in this city of 10.2 million people, a staggeringly high number for an Asian city and enough to put even the widest of the streets in an almost perpetual state of gridlock.

To ease congestion, Lee, taking a cue from European cities, introduced new bus lanes. He also switched Seoul's subway system to a fare-collection system using computerized cards.

All these changes have come in the past three years -- Lee took office in 2002--and some Seoul residents believe the mayor has been too abrupt in pushing newfangled ideas down their throats. The angriest have been car owners, much of the middle- and upper-income population of Seoul, who feel they have lost out with the introduction of the bus lanes and the demolition of the elevated highway.

"Mayor Lee should take responsibility for the hellish traffic situation in Seoul," wrote one indignant critic on an Internet site that last year started calling for his resignation.

Advocates of the poor, meanwhile, complain that he wants to demolish some of the city's shabbier housing complexes to build higher-priced residences and create work for the construction industry.

Yu Jae Hong, a professor of cultural studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, said Lee is continuing in the tradition of strong-arm politicians imposing their development schemes on the nation.

`Showy projects'

"These are all showy projects that use slogans like environment and culture," Yu said. "But it is ultimately about real estate."

Some of the polish of the new Cheonggye stream restoration has been tarnished by the arrest in May of one of Lee's closest aides, Vice Mayor Yang Yoon Jae. He is charged with accepting money from a real estate developer who wanted an exemption from height restrictions for building along the stream.

One reason that Lee draws a lot of criticism is that he is in the thick of the political fray. Besides being mayor, he is an active member of the Grand National Party, South Korea's conservative opposition party, and an outspoken critic of South Korea's left-of-center president, Roh Moo Hyun.

Among the points Roh and Lee have clashed on is the president's desire to move the capital south to ease overcrowding in Seoul. Lee calls the idea "ridiculous" and says he hopes that one day Seoul day will again be the capital of a united Korea.