Smart Land Management and Planning Interventions

SUMMARY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2 THE ROAD TO SUSTAINED GROWTH IN SOUTH KOREA
-Instability in post-war Korea and rebuilding of the national economy
-Rapid economic growth and industrialization
-Transition to inclusive growth

CHAPTER 3 POLICY INTERVENTION TOWARD SMART LAND USE AND MANAGEMENT
-Rapid urbanization and urban problems
-Smart land use and management experiences
-Redistributing rural lands and fixing the oligopolistic concentration of urban lands
-Securing land for development: The Land Readjustment Project
-Managing land markets and digitizing land-related information
-Assessment of land management and dispute resolution

CHAPTER 4 LEVERAGING KOREAN EXPERTISE TO INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTS
-Promoting land tenure security
-Using geospatial information to resolve land disputes
-Applying geospatial information to effective land/urban management and policymaking
-Building green growth initiatives for action plans
-Strengthening the capacity of government, experts, and citizens

REFERENCES
INDEX

Among numerous resources, land is a key resource that serves as a spatial basis for growth. While rational land development is beneficial for balanced growth, inefficient development destroys forests and ecosystems. Social disputes about land may also hamper growth. In this context, South Korea’s experience in land management can provide valuable lessons. Having experienced the Korean War after liberation from the Japanese, Korea has achieved a compressed economic development over the past 70 years. (...) During the course of the nation’s growth, a wealth of experiences was accumulated in managing land use and conflicts and implementing land policies.

The basic idea of relocating slum residents to a new town with an opportunity for land ownership appeared to be a reasonable starting point for policy implementation. However, the results were not satisfactory due to the underestimation of the value of lands and properties that were formerly owned by displaced households as well as due to the very poor quality of living in the new settlements. (...) The widespread disappointment and indignation of relocated households led to a protest for protecting the resident’s property rights. The struggle of Gwangju Resettlement Town (Gwangju daedanji sageon) in August 1971 is a case in point for the resettlement project. It gives a lesson that “slum clearance” must not end in the reproduction of fragility from one place to another. Therefore, it is important that the government create a habitable environment and secure land rights first and then implement relocation and resettlement plans.

Korea has grown by resolving a large number of land conflicts. It is important that the government, individuals, and private sector attempt to understand each other’s positions in such improvement. Transparency and accessibility of land information have increased due to the development of information technology, but the technology of ‘communication’, which provides information on situations and interests in the information during the development process, must be improved steadily.