We see a successful Community participation in recent urban renewal projects of Seoul. Active engagement of civil society organizations in Jangsu Town, Songmisan Town and Insa-dong can be examples of good community involvements. However, back to 1990s the situation was so different.

Until the last decade, local governments in Korea have preferred urban redevelopment over urban regeneration, and they favored private interest over communal ones.

Haengdang-dong is a turning point. Today, I am going to tell you about Haendang-dong, where a strong community resistance happened against the urban redevelopment project in 1990s. I will talk about the subject especially by giving references to a documentary: Haengdang-dong People. It is 30 min film directed by Kim Dong-won in 1994.

In the late 1980s, as Seoul prepared to host the Olympics, the government proposed a policy of forced evictions for fear of exposing slum life. Most of the lower-class families who came to Seoul to survive lived in areas which became the scene of war between police, gangsters and residents. The movie includes harsh encountering of anti-eviction local community and interviews with the locals.

In Haengdang-dong, about 3500 residents lived in physically bad, socially active environment. It is located around Wangsipri area.

They had annual singing contest, a care center taking care of children for a whole day for working parents, and they also had a study center helping children on the street to do their homework and teaching what is right.

Timeline of project described in the film:

1. Haengdang-dong is being designated as a redevelopment area by government.

2. The private company makes a development project for the area.

3. The declaration of the neighborhood as a Renewal Area encourages the property owners to sell their property and leave the area.

4. Some tenants chose leaving. Others don’t leave (or can’t leave).

5. Eviction attempt without offering a shelter for Haendang-dong’s residents begins. Worst of all it is raining season. Meanwhile treatment to landowners and tenants are different.

6. Private company takes brutal actions against who do not leave. Gangsters hired by developing company threaten tenants to move out.

7. Haengdang-dong’s residents’ resistance against the project (or better to say ‘against the eviction’) begins. Residents build a statue on the top of the town. People file up tiles and sets barricade of flatted tries in every corner of the town. And every night, self-security team is guarding the town and training for emergency of eviction.

8. The resident organization gets signatures in order to correct unfair law. Some activists involve in negotiations between community and the state.

9. At the end, government takes step. The residents of Haendang-dong-dong settle in temporary housing facilities at the end of 1995 after three years of struggle. They also build successful local communities through the union movement and set an example for those who are displaced elsewhere.

“We become one by one, for peaceful and loving land. We learn that we can achieve what we dream of if we depend on and encourage each other.”
(Tenants committee’s first anniversary, 1994.5.29)

Watch the film here.