The Greening of Seoul
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 12.22.06
Seoul, South Korea is the seventh largest city in the world. Photos show it to be a huge, booming, modern, soulless city of high rises and endless traffic. But with the completion of Cheonggyecheon Park, the city has gained a green "lung" in the heart of this town of ten million people. The story starts with a river in the middle of Seoul that had become little more than a sewer by the l970’s. Finally it was turned into a road, with a 6 lane highway above. In 2002 the mayor made a brave and visionary decision: he pledged to tear down the highway, restore the river and create a 5 mile long park along its banks. What made this idea even more audacious was that it meant relocating 160,000 cars a day off of a main arterial road. Opposition came from planners, traders and drivers. The surprise was that "the tearing down of the motorway has had both intended and unexpected effects. As soon as we destroyed the road, the cars just disappeared. A lot of people just gave up their cars. Others found a different way of driving."
Bus services were improved and the effect on the environment was instantly noticeable. According to a professor involved from the start of the project: "We found that surface temperatures in summer along the restored river were an average 3.6C lower than 400 metres away. The river is now a natural air-conditioner, cooling the capital during its long hot summers. Average wind speeds in June this year were 50% higher than the same period last year.” Citizens flock to the water's edge--there are waterfalls, play spaces, running tracks and sitting areas. Birds, fish, plants and a variety of wildlife have also returned and increased. Shanghai and Los Angeles are looking at the results because Cheonggyecheon Park has become a model for other large cities seeking to link regeneration and environmental progress. :: Guardian
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I was there last year. It truly is beautiful esepcially at night.
great that a river has been restored, though i wonder where the water comes from, and goes to, for a 5 mile long river in the middle of a city - anyone know if it is recirculated or is it actually the 'sewer' from the 70's?
Well, there are a lot of good things about this project but it was also loaded with corruption starting at the "visionary" mayor's office. The river has been labeled much a farce by local environmentalists and the project destroyed an important archaeological find (it didn't stop to "dig" it up). And other issues as well. Please refer to my blog post at http://neath.wordpress.com/2006/09/19/cheonggyecheon/
Thanks,
Neath
This project is a mixed bag as one can imagine.. when they first dug up the river they found that the river had completely dried up, and had to start pumping the water in. I wonder if that is still the case or if it flows naturally now. Great to hear that it cools down the city in the summer, seoul is absolutely unbearable in the summer due to the heat radiating off the roads and low lying smog. which results in everyone blasting air conditioners all the time. that city would be completely changed by rooftop greening and more parks.
I am from Seoul.
The restoration of cheonggyechon was a great work although some civic workers and small market owners in this area had demonstrated for this project. However, After the demolition of overpass highway and restroation the previous stream(it's not a river actually), not only Seoulities love this place but also the previous civic workers stop their complains due to the positive impacts such as more pedestrian-friendly environment & tour attraction.
If you want to check more about the project, go to http://english.seoul.go.kr/today/multi/multi_02vid.htm
This was filmed by discovery channel.
This is wonderful to see! Hopefully other industrialized cities will follow suit. Oh, I can't wait for the day when environmental responsibility is popular again in the US. Can you imagine the mayor of DC opting to build a park instead of another municiple garage?
Absolutely beautiful