Let’s Pass On a Capitalized City to Future Generations

If you were to name the world’s five greatest cities, the order would be Manhattan in the United States, London in the United Kingdom, Tokyo in Japan, Paris in France, and Seoul in South Korea. It is remarkable that Seoul belongs among the world’s top five cities. But if we compare Seoul with Manhattan, there is still much room for improvement.

People say that if you sell a house in Seoul, you can buy a bigger one in Manhattan, but these days those in the know are buying real estate in Manhattan rather than Seoul. They have recognized that Manhattan is more highly capitalized land than Seoul. This is a phenomenon that reminds us once again that what should be passed down to future generations is not money or real estate itself, but capitalization.

What kind of city is a capitalized Manhattan? It means a city that possesses industrialization, cultural distinctiveness, desirable policies, and outstanding know-how all at once. We must remember that only by passing down a capitalized city like Manhattan to the next generation can our descendants live well without leaving this land.

In a capitalized city, transportation and infrastructure are important, but there must also be a great deal of freedom. In other words, complicated and unnecessary regulations must disappear. Manhattan is regarded as the most capitalized city not only because its transportation system is well developed, but also because of the city’s cultural traditions and heritage. Industrialized Manhattan has abundant cultural distinctiveness, desirable policies, and outstanding know-how.

In Manhattan, skyscrapers stand densely packed together, while the roads are narrow and there are not many cars. The secret is its subway network, tangled like a spider’s web. It is so complex that first-time visitors find it difficult to navigate properly. These days, nationalistic YouTubers often talk as if Seoul’s subway is the best and belittle Manhattan’s subway as dirty. Manhattan’s first subway line opened on October 27, 1904. It has now expanded to 27 lines and operates 24 hours a day. The key to a subway system is that it should be convenient to use and allow people to travel quickly.

Since Line 1 of Korea’s subway opened on August 15, 1974, Manhattan was about 70 years ahead. Because it is older, Manhattan’s subway facilities are aging, but continuous remodeling has improved them considerably. It is true that Korea’s subway is clean and excellent, but that is simply a matter of management, not capital goods.

In the United States, a city is recognized as a true city only if it has a basketball arena, a baseball stadium, an ice hockey arena, and an American football stadium. Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago are about the only places that have all four. These four cities are places where functions are highly developed and the city itself serves as capital.

At present, in Korea, the only places where most things can be handled and where a city can function as capital are the Seoul metropolitan area and the Busan metropolitan area. Sejong City in Korea and The Hague in the Netherlands are merely administrative cities; they do not perform the role of a city as capital. Washington, D.C. in the United States is also only the political center, while its urban functions are weak.

For a city to fulfill the role of a city, it must form an ecosystem unit. Busan manages to function as a city largely because it forms a unit with nearby Ulsan and Changwon. Daegu and Gwangju, by contrast, have no nearby cities with which to form such a unit, making it difficult for them to function as capital.

Seoul forms a unit with Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, and Tokyo forms a unit with nearby Yokohama, creating a single ecosystem. Within an organic relationship, the ecosystem comes to function as one large city. Only when the administration cooperates closely and infrastructure is formed within the city can it serve the role of capital. Since national competitiveness is ultimately urban competitiveness, we must move carefully to build capitalized cities.

Seoul may fall short of Manhattan, but not many people would want to trade it for Paris. Paris is more glamorous, but it strongly conveys the image of a uniform, standardized, and controlled city. In such a city, creativity, innovation, and prosperity do not flourish.

There are many beautiful cities around the world, including Sydney in Australia, but from the perspective of industrialization such cities lag far behind Seoul. Seoul, dynamic and densely packed with industrialized facilities, has many advantages and strong potential for further development.

As one of the world’s five great cities, Seoul is competitive land. The proof is that it has served as the capital for 500 years of Joseon and 100 years of the Republic of Korea. The government must establish and carry out meticulous policies so that Seoul can become more capitalized. All policies, including real estate development policy, should move in a direction that allows capital to be passed on to future generations.

Concentrating cities and making real estate more competitive are tasks that can only be accomplished through systematic efforts over a long period of time. The same is true of culture. Whether hardware or software, nothing is achieved overnight. Only by viewing everything through the lens of capital and steadily cultivating competitiveness can we pass on a capitalized homeland to future generations.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 자본화된 도시를 후손에게 물려주자

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2023-08-11

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=3&idx=25936