Abstract

On December, 2011, the ruling party and opposition parties agreed to amendAct on Urban Housing Renewal to allow local residents to decide the carrying-onof renewal projects with their own evaluation. Upon this amended Act, the metropolitangovernment of Seoul released New Town Exit Policy called ‘the 1·30 Measure’. This policy focused primarily on providing resident with an exit to get out fromthe entrapped situation of housing redevelopment and new town developmentprojects. At the same time, the policy aims at getting beyond solving deadlockedproblems to shift towards a new concept of residential regeneration. The new wayof urban management sets a new principle of housing renewal such as the man-centeredrecovery of community, human rights to housing, housing welfare promotionand the like. Hence, with a view to instituting an alternative paradigm of man-centeredurban renewal, the 1·30 probationary measures involve an intention to bringabout the paradigm shift of housing renewal practices. At the time of the paradigmshift of housing renewal, this paper attempts to review the hither-to implementedhousing policy in Seoul and evaluate the possibility and limit of man/community-centeredhousing policy, with a goal to design a new conception of housing renewaland its policy agenda. The paper is organized as follow: first evaluating the currentstate of housing policy in Seoul, then examining the necessity and feasibility of policytransition from housing development to residential regeneration, finally drawing theprinciple and direction of new residental regeneration and its policy agendas.