By Steven L. Shields
The world’s first “property builders” emerged about 12,000 years in the past. That was the approximate time when the eons-old hunter-gatherer tradition of humanoids started to make a shift to settled agriculture. The growing meals provide that farming supplied expanded the human inhabitants. I discover it attention-grabbing that the shift came about in areas all through the world so distant from one another that there might have been no communication or cross-development of the concept. Maybe it was constructed into the human psyche to search out methods to take care of ample vitamin. Looking continued for hundreds extra years, however together with farming, sure animals grew to become domesticated as work engines and meals sources.
“Property improvement” appears to imply little greater than monetizing an space. For the “developer,” land that “sits” with bushes, rocks and vegetation is “undeveloped” and thus in want of “improvement.” When the primary farmers cleared plots of land to plant wheat and corn or the like, they reduce down the bushes, ripped out the tree stumps and cleared rocks to make a smoother, flatter space extra conducive to crop elevating. These early farmers used the rocks to make fences. They used the bushes to construct shelters for his or her households. All seemingly very smart. Villages, cities and cities adopted. Because the inhabitants grew, so did the necessity for farms and housing. Commerce required shops, warehouses and factories.
We’re instructed that is progress.
Korea is a space-starved nation within the trendy period. The demand for housing has eclipsed the necessity for native agriculture (given that almost all of Korea’s meals is now imported). In my 50-year-long reference to the nation, I’ve seen thatched roofs give option to concreted and corrugated-roof “New Neighborhood” homes. Within the metropolis, the previous villages exterior the historic partitions started to develop single-family brick-and-concrete homes of two to a few tales. Then, within the Nineteen Seventies, the Jamsil space started to be constructed up, with “trendy” five-story house blocks displacing hundreds of sq. meters of rice fields. By the late Nineteen Seventies, new areas of Jamsil had gone as much as 10 tales and featured the most recent in heating, with the coal cylinders changed by a central boiler plant that supplied heated flooring and scorching water for the bathe. All of these “historic” buildings are lengthy gone. The principle intersection of Jamsil has 20-or-more-story excessive rises and is house to Lotte World and the top of extremist constructing, Lotte Tower, at 120 or extra tales.
We’re instructed that is progress.
Nearer to my house within the western a part of the town, some buddies are displaced from their house of 40 years. The residents — all house owners — of the flats of their constructing are instructed by the property supervisor that it is time for “redevelopment.” (That phrase has some mean-spirited undertones). Their previous constructing, constructed within the early Nineteen Eighties, is simply 5 tales excessive and is arguably dated from a structural standpoint. The driving drive for redevelopment is the property administration firm’s complaints that the land worth is simply too excessive for thus few flats (solely about 40), now that the Seoul mayor has lifted the peak restrictions on high-rise flats. One can not help however marvel on the rationale that it’s going to make the town a “nicer place to reside” when the development and actual property corporations will reap the rewards.
Some buddies, now of their 80s, labored arduous all their lives to purchase their modest house and repay the mortgage. They raised their youngsters in that house. All their buddies and neighbors are within the constructing and adjoining housing. “They’ve shopped on the native mart for many years, patronized the small eating places and companies within the adjoining lanes. They’re profoundly broken-hearted, particularly as a result of they have to transfer away from the realm. And, though they’ll have an possibility on a spot within the new development, they are going to be again in debt — of their 80s, thoughts you — and plenty of of their lifelong buddies could by no means return. The “property developer” has been working arduous over the previous few years, and big swaths of close by neighborhoods have already bitten the mud. 1000’s of individuals have been displaced. All within the title of monetizing the ever-decreasing land provide on this small nation.
Is it progress when buildings are so tall there’s little sunshine reaching the town streets? (Certain, there are sunshine legal guidelines, however the limits are extremely low). Is it progress after we pave over all of the soil so the earth can not breathe nor adequately drain the water from the summer season rains and winter snows? Is it progress when buildings are so tall that one can not see any horizon?
Oh sure, my banker buddies guarantee me that is progress, and it’s good.
Rev. Steven L. Shields (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for a few years, starting within the Nineteen Seventies. A lifelong member of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea, he has served as a director and president. He was copy editor of The Korea Occasions in 1977. The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t replicate The Korea Occasions’ editorial stance.
