[Opinion] Migration of People

We might soon begin to say `send your children to South Chungcheong Province.` Of 114,000 people who moved out of the metropolitan area to other places during the second quarter of this year, some 18,000 moved to South Chungcheong Province. The region is gaining popularity among residents here in Seoul as the incumbent government pushes ahead with its plan to build an administrative capital in the province. Real estate investment-savvy Seoulites, in fact, now often travel to the province.

One of the most distinct characters of this country is concentration of people in the metropolitan area. Only 7.2% of the nation`s population lived in Seoul in 1949. The figure, however, continued to increase to 9.8% in 1960, 17.6% in 1970 and 22.3% in 1980 to peak in 1990 at 24.4%. The percentage began to drop in the early 1990s, with real estate development booming in outskirts of Seoul. The population in the metropolitan area as a whole, however, has been increasing steadily. According to quarterly estimates, it was only during the second and third quarter of 1998 when the number of people moving into the area was outnumbered by that of people moving out. At that time, the economy was in turmoil, going through the IMF crisis. Suffering from high interest rates and exchange rates, businesses pushed for massive layoffs. People who were forced to quit, in turn, chose to move down to farming areas with their families.

The metropolitan area takes only 11% of the land of this country, but it accounts for about a half of residents. Concentration of wealth is even higher. With people and businesses converging into a certain area, it is bound to create such problems as expensive houses, traffic, pollution and crimes. The country as a whole will suffer from lopsided development. This is why the government has been introducing land development policies aimed at decentralization of the population, limiting the number of residential and industrial facilities and land development projects in the metropolitan area.

Yet, it seems that most of those policies have failed, given people remain concentrated in the area. The incumbent government, however, resorts to the failed approach of limiting facilities. I doubt if businesses will ever build factories in local areas facing regulations in the metropolitan area. They rather choose to shelve investment plans or move facilities out of the country. Regulations will not solve the problem of concentration. Things will get better only when per capita income increases and local autonomous governments have more authorities. Like water that runs high to low, we cannot stop the flow of the population forcefully.

Cheon Gwang-am, Editorial Writer