Foreigner here, who has read a bit about south korean structural problems in social and traditional media (including on this sub-reddit). South korea has deep problems with: lowest fertility rate in the world (0,7 per woman last year, still declining), very high price of housing (where people actually want to live), economy concentrated around chaebols (where the best jobs are), decline of rural and small town areas (if not depopulation already), structural dependency on international commerce, etc and thus far, failed policies that cost tenths if not hundreds of billions (us dolars equivalent).
I understand that the national government and various sub-national governments have tried a lot of things to mitigate or solve this conundrum. Moving the capital elsewhere (which was struck down by the supreme court with justification on the constitution itself, and what was done was a half-measure that was innefective, with the government workers that moved keeping families in seoul and just going there to work); Investing in expensive infrastructure to connect the country (with the hope that people and companies would move outside of seoul and make value elsewhere); giving massive tax breaks and direct investment outside seoul (in hopes that other regions would grow a self-sustaining economic base); giving some money to couples so they would have children; etc etc.
But (as i understand it), all this was in vain, and will remain so in the foreseeable future. Every social, economic and political institution of note is in Seoul (this includes the national government, K-pop shows, etc). Basically, everyone and their mom and dog wants to move to Seoul (metropolitan area). No company (big or relevant) wants to move headquarters or good jobs outside of Seoul; Vast majority of parents wants to raise kids in Seoul schools and private courses; Most university students want to go to SKY (in Seoul) or a good enough college (in Seoul). Everywhere else in Korea is considered a backwater that people want to leave themselves or their children. It’s useless even to consider the lower housing prices outside of Seoul: most of those places will have no good jobs, or medical or education infrastructure that people want or need. Old people will want the specialist doctors (that are in Seoul), parents as said will want the kids to go to Seoul, young people that wish to make a good career or just to have fun and not ‘miss out’ will move to Seoul.
Instead of wasting big money on trying to save the rest of korea, in failure, I (my political-economic opinion) think the south koreans should just accept the material reality of this list of events and trends, and just make the best of it. Metropolisation, Urban concentration of economic activities, leads to increased efficiency of production, that is just economic hard fact. Another fact is , korean people don’t really, really, care about the other korean regions, in the level of accepting burdening serious costs to themselves to turn them around (i.e. subsidizing them so heavily that they outmatch Seoul, or just accepting for themselves and their children that they will make it do living in small town XYS). This includes even hipotetycally reintegrating north korea in a peaceful reunification scenario to the younger demographics, due to the $ costs alone.
The government should do the following: Basically double the size and enhance what Seoul currently is. Massive new housing and urban construction in the metropolitan area of Seoul alone, with order of preference in selling at heavy discount (or leasing, giving etc) good houses to couples with children (with categories for 1, 2, and 3 children, or up, you are kind of desperate after all) and building new economic centers in the Seoul metropolitan region alone. The chaebols and government will not move to Busan or medium town XYZ, but they might move to another sub-district of Seoul. Massively build the expensive transportation infrastructure in Seoul alone, so that gyeonggi is less than 30 minutes from anywhere else for example. Expand those good jobs and colleges in Seoul that people are wanting, like doubling SKY capacity or building more letters. The inevitable enormous grey population that will come can cheaper and better be taken care of by inhabiting together in condos with shared medical staff and in short distances of the best medical places in the land. Everyone can have at least some more chances at getting to the top ladder in the political, economic, cultural, etc spheres by inhabiting in the center of everything. Other regions will be either restored to nature or converted to agriculture, resource extraction, needed infrastructure like seaports, or tourism. Tokyo metro region has 44 million inhabitants in the same area as Seoul, and i believe south koreans can construct even better a 50 million people ‘city-state of seoul’.
submitted by /u/Septimius-Severus13
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