Slum Communities in South Korea: Guryong Village and Yongsan's Hidden Side

Despite South Korea's OECD status and glittering cities, informal settlements ("slums") persist, largely invisible amid the prosperity. Two prominent examples:

1. Guryong Village (구룡마을) — Seoul's Largest Urban Slum

• Location: Gangnam-gu, Seoul — literally in the shadow of Gangnam's luxury high-rises (Teheran-ro, COEX).
• Population: ~1,000–1,500 households (~3,000–4,000 people), not 100,000 (that figure is often conflated with total urban poor).
• Housing: Makeshift shanties (vinyl, corrugated metal, scrap wood) on illegally occupied private land.
• Conditions: No legal water/sewage; shared outdoor taps; fire risk extreme; narrow alleys inaccessible to fire trucks.
• Residents: Elderly poor, day laborers, some North Korean defectors, migrant workers.
• Status: Decades of redevelopment plans (high-rise apartments with compensation) stalled by landowner disputes, resident disagreements, and profitability calculations. Ongoing.

2. Yongsan District — The "Ironically Named" Slums

• Area: Near Yongsan Station / US Army Garrison (relocating to Pyeongtaek).
• Communities: Several pockets (e.g., Baeksa Village, Namyeong-dong) with dense, aging, substandard housing.
• Dynamics: Massive redevelopment (Yongsan International Business District) repeatedly delayed (2008 financial crisis, land speculation, resident protests against inadequate compensation). The 2009 Yongsan Tragedy (6 deaths in eviction clash) scarred the nation.

Government Response

• Public Rental Housing: LH (Korea Land & Housing Corp) supplies units; waitlists long.
• Urban Regeneration New Deal (Moon Jae-in): Shift from demolition to repair/community-led.
• Challenges: Sky-high land values make "affordable" housing financially unviable for developers without massive subsidy.

South Korea's slums are not vast favelas but pockets of deep deprivation amid affluence—a testament to compressed development and unresolved land justice.