History of South Korean urbanization

Urbanization, along with industrialization and globalization, is one of the most significant trends in the modern world.  Urbanization has radically reformed and changed the traditional patterns of traditions of human communities. The culture and values blooming from the cities are dominating the entire society. In history different technological innovations have made it possible for cities to expand both vertically and horizontally, like the elevator has made it possible to the cities to raise taller.  

The United Nations recommendation for the description of cities is a place with more than 20,000 inhabitants. In Korea, the definition for a city is an urban area with at least 150,000 inhabitants.  The urbanization in Korea happened in three stages, the first was 1910-1945, the second 1945 until the end of the 1950s and the third from early 1960s to the 1980s.

First Stage of Korean urbanization 1910-1945

Urbanization began in during Japanese rule and urban residents before 1910 were about 3- 5% of the total population, but slowly increased to 10-20% in the first stage of urbanization. The tempo and need for the urbanization was controlled by the Japanese and they founded many new, rapidly growing cities. 

Second Stage of Korean urbanization 1945-End of the 1950s

After 1945 the growth of cities went hand in hand with incoming immigrants. In 1945 South Korean population was 16 million and in 1949 it had grown already to 19 million. During the second stage, the annual average increase was highest in Korean history - 6 percent.

Third Stage: Early 1960s to the 1980s

In early 1960s was the period of rapid industrialization, which naturally led into rapid urbanization in the country. This was also the period when Seoul started to expand strongly, between 1960 and 1970 almost two thirds of all migration happened to Seoul. By the mid-1980s, a marked reduction in the amount of rural to urban migration; large and medium-sized cities experienced considerable growth.

After the three stages 

Nowadays people usually have two main reasons for moving into the cities, 1) economic pressure: move to cities to seek jobs and better opportunities and 2) aspiration for better education:  urban areas offered better education.

In 1990s almost all (90%) of the new housing units build in Korea were in the form of apartments.  There also has been noticeable increase in one-person and one-generation households in the rural areas. In the capital region, which is about 12% of the total land in South Korea, lives almost 50% of the total population. People in the cities also tend to be more affluent then the rural habitants; 65% of bank deposits are made by the residents of the capital region. Also all the well-known Korean universities are in the capital region.

All over the world urbanization has effects on the surrounding environment; rapid growth of the people is usually followed by e.g. unplanned land use. Urbanization and the welfare creates growing demand for building new, sustainable housing. Sustainability and safety happens to be KONEs specialty, which would give the company a competitive edge on the market. Unfortunately the Korean elevator and escalator –industry already has some multinational big players that have a strong hold on the market and large customer base. We shall do some more research about the competitors of KONE to investigate what makes the company different from its competition.

Source: http://ocw.korea.edu/