Gangnam
Gangnam
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Left to right from top: Intersection in Teheran Valley, Samsung Town, Bongeunsa temple, Lotte World Tower, Gangnam nightlife, Gangnam skyline | |
Country | South Korea |
Metropolitan Area | Seoul Capital Area |
City | Seoul |
Composition | Core Periphery |
Area | |
• Total | 307.34 km2 (118.66 sq mi) |
• Core | 120.26 km2 (46.43 sq mi) |
Population (2020) | |
• Total | 4,985,421 |
• Core | 1,553,172 |
Gangnam (
Historically, the region was also called Yeongdong (영동; 永東; lit. East of Yeongdeungpo) and remained undeveloped prior to the state-led urban development of the 1960s.[6] During the 1970s and 1980s, Park Chung Hee, aiming to counteract urban sprawl and the threat of North Korean invasion, promoted development in Gangnam through targeted investment into the region and the suppression of development north of the Han River. As the result of Park's policies, a number of companies, prestigious schools, and government institutions relocated to the region and land prices in Gangnam skyrocketed.
Geography
While the term Gangnam can refer narrowly to the Gangnam District or broadly to the entire region of Seoul south of the Han River, the conventional and most common use of the term is to refer to the affluent Gangnam, Seocho, and Songpa districts.[7][8][a] Other definitions exclude the Songpa District or define the region around the Gangnam Eighth School District or the commercial districts around Gangnam Highway and Gangnam station.[9][10][11] The term Gangnam is used in counterpoint with Gangbuk (강북; 江北; lit. North of the [Han] River) and the distinction between the two regions was formed sometime following the 1970s.[8] The region is surrounded by the Han River to the north, Umyeonsan Mountain , Guryongsan Mountain, and Daemosan Mountain to the south, the Tancheon stream to the southeast, and the Yangjaecheon stream to the southwest.[12]
Gangnam is sometimes divided into Taebuk (테북; lit. north of Tehran) and Taenam (테남; lit. south of Tehran), referring to the regions north and south of Teheran Boulevard respectively. In popular culture, residents from the northern half are characterized as old money and the families of chaebol, while residents from the southern half are characterized as working professionals who are overly concerned with their children's education as a result of their background.[13][14]
The Cheongdam, Apgujeong, Dogok, and Seocho neighborhoods have the highest concentration of residential buildings in Gangnam, while the region's businesses are concentrated around Teheran Boulevard.[15] The vast majority of land in Gangnam is zoned for residential use, and as of 2011[update], forty percent of all buildings are multi-family buildings.[16] Guryong Village, a shantytown populated by residents displaced during the development of Gangnam, is found in the Gaepo neighborhood of Gangnam.[17] The region's parks include Dosan Park, the Seonjeongneung burial ground, and the Yangjae Citizen's Forest.[12]
History
Joseon and Colonial Korea
Historically, before incorporating Gangnam region into the city of Seoul in 1963, the Gangnam region around current
The swampy region was originally home to various poor farming households living in traditional
Even when the Seoul city's peripheral suburb
State-led development
Military dictator
Throughout the 1970s, the government implemented various economic incentives and tax exemptions to promote the construction of new apartments in Gangnam.[30] By 1985, 70 percent of all housing units in Gangnam were apartments, compared to just 26.5 percent in the rest of Seoul.[31] New residential constructions in Gangnam were sold off by the government at below market rates through a lottery program.[32] These lotteries were highly competitive and were restricted to middle-class Koreans as a result of their strict financial requirements. During this time, intense media attention was focused on middle-class housewives who participated in the real estate market with the use of the pejorative term bok-buin (복부인; lit. Mrs. Realtor).[33] Competition for the lottery was intensified by the fact that lottery entrants typically entered the names of other family members, and because winners could resell their tickets at full market value, resulting in high levels of speculative investment.[34] By 1985, 89 percent of Gangnam's residents had moved in within the last five years, in comparison with 30 percent for the rest of Seoul.[32]
Between 1963 and 1979, land prices in Gangnam increased nearly 1000 times, while land prices in Gangbuk increased 25 times in the same period.[35] In the early 1980s, the Park government enacted the Gangbuk Suppression Policies, which restricted the new construction of businesses, entertainment venues, factories, and department stores north of the river.[36]
Relocation of schools
Before the 1970s, most prestigious schools in Seoul were located in Downtown Seoul. As part of the development program in Gangnam, the government provided construction and land subsidies, as well as tax exemptions, to schools that moved south of the river, hoping to attract parents to move for their children's educations.[37] Additionally, the Park government passed the High School Equalization Policy, which ended rankings and entrance exams for elite high schools, encouraging these schools to move to Gangnam to regain their reputations.[36] In 1975, Seoul National University relocated from Downtown Seoul to Gangnam[38] and in 1976, Kyunggi High School, the highest ranked high school in Seoul, moved as well. In the following years, a number of elite high schools would move to Gangnam, giving the region its reputation as an educational mecca.[39] The migration of these schools south of the river has been described as the primary reason behind Gangnam's current affluent status.[36]
Post-Park development
In 1988, in response to the rapid population growth in Gangnam, the region was split into the
Economy
Gangnam has among the highest concentrations of wealth in Seoul, with the Gangnam and Seocho districts having the greatest proportion of high-income households in the city.[21] More than half of all lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, financial managers, and civil servants in South Korea live in Gangnam,[42] and as of 2002, 37 percent of the National Assembly and 39 percent of all top officials lived in Gangnam.[43] Following the relocation of the Supreme Court of Korea, the Seoul District Court, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, and the Seoul Prosecutor's Office to the Seocho neighborhood of Seocho District, the area also has a high concentration of law offices.[44] As of 2021[update], more than 82,000 people living in Gangnam had a net worth greater than 1 billion won.[45]
Gangnam hosts many
Arts and culture
In Korean popular culture, Gangnam is depicted as both an object of aspiration and a region that draws reproval for the perceived corrupt and immoral ways in which its residents acquire their wealth. The boundaries of Gangnam are often defined by its affluence, and residents of Gangnam have been found to only recognize parts of Seoul with a standard of living similar or higher than their own to be part of Gangnam.[26] The region has been likened to a gated community, with residents chastising other parts of Seoul as being 'old-fashioned' and 'unsophisticated'.[55] Similarly, studies of children from Gangnam have found that they hold negative views of non-Gangnam areas, describing them as "rough, dirty, countrified, smelly, and somewhat dangerous".[56] Residency in Gangnam is considered a status symbol, with both businesses and people actively seeking out the region as a means of exhibiting one's success.[56] Although negative attitudes towards Gangnam residents are common among non-Gangnam residents, surveys have found most would still move to Gangnam if they were able to.[56]
The region has a high concentration of
Pop culture
In 2012, in the K-pop song "Gangnam Style", the singer PSY parodied the cultural, lifestyle, and class markers associated with the nouveau riche of the Gangnam region.[60] While the music video features the ASEM Tower and Trade Tower in Gangnam, most of the video was filmed outside of Seoul in Incheon.[61] The 2015 action film Gangnam Blues featured the history of real estate development in the Gangnam area.[62] Gangnam has also been the setting of a number of K-dramas about the lives of affluent Koreans, including To Catch Up with Gangnam Mothers (2007), Living Among the Rich (2011), Cheongdam-dong Alice (2012), and Their Perfect Day (2013).[63]: 103
Religion
In Gangnam, attending an affluent or prestigious religious institution has become a status symbol.[64] This phenomenon is especially prevalent among Protestant denominations that prohibit ancestor worship.[65] The region is also known for having a number of megachurches—which is partially the result of the region's population boom.[66]
Housing and architecture
Gangnam is notable for having the first large-scale middle class apartment complexes built in Seoul.[67] During the 2000s, a number of buildings designed by popular architects, including Daniel Libeskind, Mario Botta, and Ben van Berkel, were built in Gangnam.[12] The Kyobo Gangnam Tower, Urban Hive, Boutique Monaco, and Samsung Town in Gangnam have all been recognized for their architecture.[68]
Education
Some of the most prestigious high schools and
Gangnam has a disproportionate number of hagwons for its population, having more than 32 percent of all hagwons in Seoul.[45] In particular, the Daechi neighborhood of Gangnam has more than 900 hagwons, the highest number in the country.[21] As a result of its location within the Gangnam Eighth School District and the end of the South Korean ban on private tutoring, Daechi-dong emerged as the epicenter of hagwons in Seoul.[71] Of the students accepted into Seoul National University in 2022, 11.9 percent graduated from schools in the Gangnam and Seocho districts of Seoul.[21] In addition, Gangnam has the highest proportion of residents with a bachelor's degree in Seoul, with the vast majority of residents having at least a bachelor's degree.[69]
Politics
After the
Transportation
The construction of the Hannam Bridge, the third bridge over the Han River in Seoul,[b] began in January 1966 and was completed on December 25, 1966.[75] The Gyeongbu Expressway, which connected Seoul to Busan through Gangnam, began construction in 1968, and the project was completed on July 7, 1970.[75] These two projects were responsible for kick-starting a period of rapid growth in Gangnam.[75] The Gyeongbu Expressway, along with the Gangnam Highway and Teheran Boulevard, comprise the main arterial roads of Gangnam.[12]
In June 1975, the
Gangnam has the greatest number of connections on the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, a product of Park Chung Hee's targeted development in the region.[78] Lines Two and Three of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway were intentionally designed to go through Gangnam, which previously had a dearth of public transportation.[79] The stations between the Sports Complex station and the Seoul National University of Education station on Seoul Subway Line 2 opened in December 1982 and the loop itself was completed in December 1983.[80]
See also
- Economic inequality in South Korea
- Education in South Korea
- Fashion in South Korea
- Haeundae District – region that has been described as the Gangnam of Busan[81]
- Suseong District
- Economy of Seoul
Notes
- ^ a b Gangnam can refer to the entire region south of the Han River or the Gangnam District, but the term is most commonly used to refer to the three districts of Gangnam, Seocho, and Songpa.
- Koo 2022, p. 67: "Although not every area of Gangnam is affluent, its three core districts (Gangnamgu, Seochogu, and Songpagu) are definitely middle or upper middle class in terms of the residents’ economic status."
- Jin 2023: "The term Gangnam technically means south of the river, and refers to three districts in Seoul below the Han River: Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa."
- Yang 2018a, p. 3408: "While Gangnam can be defined in different ways – from the narrowest, limited to just the administrative district of Gangnam-gu itself, to the broadest, which would encompass the whole area south of the Han River– I follow the conventional and common definition of Gangnam as an area composed of the three administrative units of Gangnam-gu, Seocho-gu, and Songpa-gu."
- ^ a b While the Gwangjin Bridge, connecting the modern-day Gwangjin District and Gangdong District, was completed in 1936, at the time, the bridge was located outside of the boundaries of Seoul.[75]
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Works cited
- Bae, Yooil; Joo, Yu-Min (February 14, 2019). "The Making of Gangnam: Social Construction and Identity of Urban Place in South Korea". S2CID 159075378.
- Cho, Wonjun; Kwon, Youngsang (March 1, 2021). "The era of Seoul's rapid growth (1960s–1970s): The role of ex-military elite mayors". S2CID 233799722.
- Jin, Min-ji (February 11, 2023). "How did Gangnam become the Seoul epicenter it is today?". Korea JoongAng Daily. JoongAng Ilbo. Archived from the original on February 26, 2023. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
- Joo, Yu-Min (January 10, 2019). Megacity Seoul: Urbanization and the Development of Modern South Korea. London: S2CID 134692613.
- Jung, Namji (April 17, 2012). "New economic space, policies, and social actors: The development of Kangnam area from urban fringe to the centre of new economy and relational governance". In Daniels, Peter W.; Ho, K.C.; Hutton, Thomas A. (eds.). New Economic Spaces in Asian Cities: From Industrial Restructuring to the Cultural Turn. London: ISBN 9780203860151.
- Kang, Hong-bin (February 1, 2011). 강남40년 영동에서 강남으로 [40 Years of Gangnam: From Yeongdong into Gangnam] (in Korean). ISBN 978-89-91553-24-8. Archivedfrom the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
- Koo, Hagen (July 15, 2022). Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era. Ithaca, New York: OCLC 1295620078.
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- Park, Bae-Gyoon; Jang, Jin-bum (November 19, 2018). "The Gangnam-ization of Korean Urban Ideology". In Doucette, Jamie; Park, Bae-Gyoon (eds.). Developmentalist Cities? Interrogating Urban Developmentalism in East Asia. Studies in Critical Social Sciences. Vol. 130. S2CID 158150660.
- Yang, Myungji (February 7, 2018). "The rise of 'Gangnam style': Manufacturing the urban middle class in Seoul, 1976–1996". S2CID 158677717.
- Yang, Myungji (March 15, 2018). From Miracle to Mirage: The Making and Unmaking of the Korean Middle Class, 1960-2015. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctt1w1vk7k.