Eco-friendly Seoul: At least they are trying

SEOUL, South Korea — This enormous world metropolis — 10.3 million or so people stretching its borders along the shores of the Han River — has come to a turning point of sorts and is changing direction.

A city noted for its hazy skies and polluted rivers has met the future, and believes it to be without cars, with greenbelts and with fewer people in the city proper. Seoul, a city and a capital that industrialized 20 years ago much like China is doing now, has decided it would like to be a veranda to the world instead of a machine shop. In the space of a few years, Seoul's mayor (now the country's president, Lee Myung-bak) embarked on a building project epic enough to match the lore of any Asian people. With about 70,000 workers, day and night, 24/7, the people of Korea tore down their old viaduct and installed an ancient river, pushing about 120,000 tons of water a day through miles of the city.

Gone are the slums, back are the ducks. Gone is the rule of traffic above the shops and in its place, the riverwalk of all riverwalks, miles and miles in a straight line to the sea — a grand canal called Cheong Gye Cheon.

How did they do it?

In-ken Lee, director-general of urban planning, led the project under the mayor's supervision. Lee remembers the time as a coming together of the city, with notorious negotiations with some 4,000 shopkeepers who wanted the viaduct to remain.

"We met every week with the mayor to discuss progress," Lee said in an interview this past Tuesday. "Every Sunday morning, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m."

I'm thinking: Smokes, that's a serious commitment.

"What's the hurry?" Lee was asked.

"Speed is money," said Lee, who holds a Ph.D. in engineering from a British university. "We were behind in our infrastructure and we couldn't catch up. We were doubling our city population every 10 years. We had to intervene."

Intervention in Seoul means a vision of a city where everything is accessible by foot or through one of the city's nine subway lines.

A current project suggests people leave their cars at home one day a week. The cars have signs on them declaring which day they are supposed to be left at home. Three strikes and your car fees go up. Is it working?

"Definitely," Lee said. But outside, the streets are crammed with shiny cars, as prosperity hits South Korea like a typhoon. This city, like most in Asia, has the feeling of a horse gone wild, straining to get over the hill.

Lee contends the resulting city he and others are planning will be much different.

Consider Seattle as envisioned by the city planners of Seoul:

There would be a dense core of high-rise buildings, green walkways for "total access" and a modern metro transit system. The city's population would decline slightly — in Seoul's case from 10 million to 8 million. And around the core city would be as many as 18 satellite cities to absorb more people and commerce. They would not exactly be urban centers but, something like Bellevue, would be self-contained and part of larger, regional plans.

"[Seoul] is getting better and better," Lee said. "We have to change from a manufacturing center to an urban center with a high quality of life. We want to attract smart people who want to live in a city that is available to them, for many things."

Recently constructed, huge apartment buildings, for example, have their own multiplex movie houses. "We want to go beyond the entertainment value of a city to the economic value of entertainment," Lee said.

A good example is the little neighborhood of Sam Chung Dong in a nice part of town with little coffee shops and bars. It is not the Asia of tiny stalls but a Georgetown, D.C., kind of place: ice-cream shops and Starbucks as far as the eye can see.

Across the Han River, Seoul planners are shaping the Hangang Renaissance, which, if you believe the plans, is a recreational river city that might look something like Hood River, Ore., with high rises. Lots of them. They plan marinas, waterfront living and modern versions of village greens.

To Lee and others, this means pushing manufacturing and old jobs away from Seoul.

"Maybe to China or Vietnam or Indonesia," Lee said matter-of-factly. "We are looking for a 'ubiquitous city,' " he added, one that attracts Korean Americans and others to a city where the links to the world are easy and never turn off. A region wired to the gills.

Living, as Lee says, in an "eco-friendly, waterfront city," may seem like home cooking to Seattle, but the differences are those of a city adapting to enormous population changes and one mired in process to the point of indifference to the outside world.

Seattle is ahead of Seoul in its infatuation and adoration of the city's natural beauty. Seoul, still shrouded in exhaust fumes, has lost its view of the four mountains that surround the city and provided its protection. But Seoul has a grip on a vision for the future.

Asked what worries him about a city so ambitious as Seoul, Lee suggests the problem of language isolation; Korean is not exactly the universal lingo of trade. But, of course, the kids here are rapidly learning Chinese, Japanese and, in most cases, English. The United States remains a place to go for an education and a future, even if that future is back in a Seoul with clear skies and mountains to see.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at www.seattletimes.com/edcetera