The Role of Urban Planning in the Process of Making Livable Cities in Korea

Making cities can be defined as the social activities and institutional frameworks functioning related to the growth and change of cities. Especially, in physical terms it includes not only individual site development, developing projects in certain urban areas, the building and improvement of urban facilities but also preparative planning to encourage or control these development activities.

Recently, in Korea, a new phase of making cities started which is different from the making cities in the age of development of the 1960s to 1980s. During the time, the central government or local authorities were dominating the process of making cities, proposing and deciding urban plans in general. However, since the mid-1990s, residents, NGOs and professionals have played important roles in the process of city-making as well as the central and local governments. In the mean time, there have been some conflicts with existing urban plans and regulations and also radical shift in urban planning paradigms.