Urban Blight in Seoul (Good)
An area of a apartment neighborhood in Gangnam, Cheongdam-dong district. Also known as one of the richest apartment neighborhood in Seoul due to its price, the surrounding, quality, safety, and the main road that it is connected to. In every apartment near here has its own uniqueness and has a European design. The basement or the underground area were also created for residential car parking which means that the area surrounding the apartment is nice and clean because cars are not allowed to park there. Security guards are always working 24 hours to make sure that the neighborhood is being protected. Roads are nicely build and planed to allow both cars and even trucks to pass through. Along the road is the Cheongdam park where people can easily go out to exercise and spend time outside their home and at the side of the park is the Han River where people can go ride bicycles and hangout there also.
The Cheongdam district is consider to be one of the most richest district in Seoul. This is the picture of the main roads where buildings on the sides are nicely organized and small roads are separated from the big roads where apartments and villa's are located. On both sides of this big road are offices and other services that can make citizens life more convenient such as bank, restaurants coffee shops, malls, department stores, post office, hospital, and many more. The price of apartments near this area can is very high because it is consider a business district. About 15 years ago this area weren't consider a rich area but now old buildings are being removed and replaced with modern apartments. Buildings are always being build every single month along this roads and old buildings are constantly being cleaned and taken care of by the government so it is impossible for you to find any old houses or buildings in this area.
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Garusogil, one of the shopping roads that attracts tourists every single year due to its nice organized road and the shops that are located in the area. This road is rich with trees flowers that makes this road a eco-friendly area which gets a lot of economic support from the government to keep the area clean and to attract more tourists.
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Urban Blight in Seoul (Bad)
Same issue is also happening to this store. The building quality is starting to decrease due to time. Their buildings are not being taken care of properly due to their financial problems that the family is facing and they are not willing to move.
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A modern neighborhood where everything is nicely being organized. Next to this luxurious apartment is an old family business department store that a small family is still doing for the last 10 years. They said that many company's were trying to persuade them to sell their land so that they can turn it into a new apartment project but they wouldn't sell it even though the quality and parts of the buildings is beginning to fall down and is now out of shape (compared to the other apartments around them). They are also facing sewage problems and waters are being leaked out. When I see these buildings, I can clearly see the differences between the old urban planning and the new urban planning and also how the housing systems were being designed many years ago.
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This is a picture of a long graffiti wall under a tunnel near the Hangang River in Cheongdam district. This tunnel is a tunnel that connects the park to the river side so that people can walk through this tunnel from their apartment to enter the river side. People say that graffiti can be a solution to urban blight/decay because it helps Graffiti on public walls is also one of the major causes of urban blight. There are graffiti writers who treat graffiti as a form of community beautification. To make use of abandoned space and decorate the community with art. But sometimes in places where the walls are still nice and clean, people tend to spray on it which causes urban blight which is not allow in almost every country around the world. It can also cause public disturbance to people who lives in this residential area.
Urban Issues in Seoul
The exit of the park had been clogged with garbage and the park itself is not being organized well because there is not enough garbage and staffs from the government to take care of it. Also near the park the air is quite polluted because at the side of the park, is the road connection between the main road and the bridge to cross from one river side to the other. From my own observation, I also saw that as cars passes by, the drivers also likes to throw their cigarettes on the ground near the park, which can be another issue leading to urban blight. In the morning and the afternoon, cars can be very crowded near this area too.
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This picture was taken near a road near Coex Mall where people are done with work and are driving on the road to get back home. Even though there are lots of public transportations these days in Seoul but traffic can be very bad during different time of the day. This picture was taken years ago when rush hour traffic jams can be very bad. But nowadays, the government is encouraging people to use public transportations instead such as buses and subways to reduce the amount of traffic on the roads since building more roads in Seoul couldn't really solve the problem. People can be able to save up time to get to different places during the rush hour and the bus and subway routes also covers every single street in Seoul so that citizens can be more convenient about their choice of transportations.