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Cheonggyecheon

Cheonggyecheon (Hangul: 청계천) is a nearly 6km long, modern public recreation space in downtown Seoul, South Korea. The massive urban renewal project is on the site of a stream that flowed before the rapid post-war economic development required it to be covered by transportation infrastructure. The $900 million project attracted much criticism initially but opened in 2005 and is now popular among Seoul residents and tourists.

Geography and history

Cheonggyecheon is a 5.8 km creek flowing East to West through downtown Seoul, and then meeting Jungnangcheon, which in turn connects to the Han River and empties into the Yellow Sea. During the 1948-1960 presidency of Syngman Rhee, Cheonggyecheon was covered with concrete for roads. In 1968, during the presidency of Park Chung-hee, an elevated highway was built over it.

Restoration

In July 2003, then-Seoul mayor, current President Lee Myung-bak initiated a project to remove the elevated highway and restore the stream. It was a major undertaking as not only did the highway have to be removed, but years of neglect and development had left the stream nearly totally dry, so 120,000 tons of water had to be pumped in daily.^{[citation needed]} The stream was opened to the public in September of 2005 and lauded as a major success in urban renewal and beautification. However, there was considerable opposition from the previous mayoral administration of Goh Kun, which feared gentrification of the adjacent areas that housed many shops and small businesses in the machine trades.

The restoration helped Lee become a nationally renowned figure, making him a serious contender for the presidency, but did not come without controversy. In May 2005, just a few months before the project was to finish, Seoul vice-mayor Yang Yun-jae and local politician Kim Il-ju were arrested on bribery charges related to the project.^{[citation needed]}

The project is estimated to have cost over 900 billion won (approximately US$ 900 million). In addition, about 12 trillion won (US$12 billion) is expected to be invested to re-develop the 792,000 square meter region near the stream into a major commercial and residential area over the next five years.^{[citation needed]} Some Korean environmental organizations have criticized the project for its high costs, calling it purely symbolic and not really beneficial to the city's eco-environment.

Photos

See also

• Rivers of Korea
• Lee Myung-bak

References

Further reading

J. H. Shin, "Dream and Hope of Korea, Cheonggyecheon Restoration," Magazine of Korean Water Resources Association, Vol. 37, No.1, 2004.

External links

• Official website of Cheonggyecheon
• Seoul government homepage for the Cheonggyecheon restoration
• Mayor Lee Myung-bak's speech marking the start of the restoration project
• Cheonggyecheon from Official Seoul City Tourism
• Chonggyechon: New Stream of Seoul, special report of The Korea Times, September 29, 2005.
• "Investigate Everything About Cheonggyecheon", The Hankyoreh, May 11, 2005.
• "Restoring Cheonggyecheon Stream in the Downtown Seoul", Hwang Kee-yeon, Seoul Development Institute, 2004.