How Seoul, South Korea Demolished a Freeway to Restore an Ancient River System into a Green Urban Oasis
This downtown green space in Seoul was once a looming, congested elevated freeway but the city decided to get rid of this freeway to revive an ancient river. The capital and largest city of South Korea, i.e., Seoul, has a population of more than ten million, which is why it is regarded as a megacity. With 26 million inhabitants, Seoul is the fifth-largest city in the world and has the third-largest metropolitan population in Asia. Due to the Capital Area's location on a plain in the valley of the Han River, Seoul has been continually inhabited for more than 2,000 years.
As a result, Seoul faced significant urban problems during the 1960s and 1970s due to a large influx of people, including traffic congestion, environmental pollution, the creation of illegal settlement sites, and a lack of housing. However, Seoul has turned this around in under 50 years by addressing various urban issues to improve and evolve into an intelligent metropolis where 10 million people can live happily and is regarded as one of the greenest megacities in the world, with 27.80% public parks and gardens. This is why it can be viewed as a significant achievement for any city, but especially for Seoul, the seventh most populous city in the world. In comparison, only 7.5% of Tokyo consists of green spaces, despite having less than half the population density of Seoul City.
The story of the Cheonggyecheon started hundreds of years ago during the reign of the Joseon Dynasty, when the kingdom’s castle was considered the “head” of Seoul and the river the “body”. That was its glorious past.
Making the Chengygheon river restoration on of the most successful urban green mega projects in the world. Let us dive in to all the events that lead to the successful completion, and how a new traffic model was prepared that accommodated around 168,000 cars per day. The Cheonggye Creek, which flowed through a rapidly urbanized Seoul, was covered by an elevated expressway in 1968, obscuring the remnants of the city's old coastline. In addition, the freeway was crowded with vehicles as the economy grew.
As a result, the Cheonggye neighborhood recorded the city's most unusual noise and traffic levels three decades later. The people concluded that the motorway needed to be removed to alleviate the situation, and this notion came from an unlikely source. Later on, Lee Myung-bak won the 2001 election for mayor of Seoul thanks to a campaign that included promises to tear down the expressway and restore Cheonggye Creek. To make Seoul a hub of Northeast Asia, Myung-bak, the previous CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, had the vision to draw in tourists, foreign organizations, and business investments. Overwhelming public support for the motorway project was evidenced by the fact that approximately 80% of Seoul citizens backed the Myung proposal.
The city government wanted the first stage of restoration to be finished within one mayoral term due to the politically sensitive nature of the project. Lee Myung-bak was able to capitalize on this achievement at the national level and was elected president of South Korea in 2008.
After the highway was demolished in 2005, a 9 km green swath was created in the middle of the city by an artificial creek that currently runs in its stead. The city has attracted wealthy, educated professionals and people who value the feeling of a natural environment in an urban setting by creating green corridors around the rediscovered canal. The demolition has helped Seoul's tourism industry as well. According to Time magazine, the stream now receives 500,000 visitors per week, making it among the most well-liked tourist destinations in South Korea. Cheonggye Creek's enormous success has sped up related projects. After the Cheonggye Freeway was dismantled, over 15 expressways in Seoul were also removed. The city's management is currently interested in making more lanes for bikers and reviving the tram system and demolishing freeways are also helping in those domains.
Environmentalists have mentioned a plethora of additional advantages of this activity. Flooding rains are handled better by open waterways than by underground sewers. The neighbourhood near Cheonggye Creek had a 3.3-degree Celsius drop in average summer temperatures due to the removal of the expressway, which also transformed adjoining streets.
The city left a few columns of the elevated highway that once ran over the river as a reminder which was a nice way to wrap up this project.
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