Seoul is a lovely capital city, as far as these things go, but there is a growing push to move it -- or at least its most important government functions -- 75 miles south:
"In a National Assembly speech on Monday, Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon, floor leader of the DP, proposed that the National Assembly, Blue House and key ministries in Seoul move to Sejong. He said the relocation would decentralize Seoul and nearby areas and curb skyrocketing housing prices in the overcrowded capital region.
According to a DP source, Kim floated the idea based on a survey conducted by the party last week. The DP conducted a poll on July 17 and 18, the source told the Joongang Ilbo.
'In our poll, 62 percent supported the idea, while 33 percent opposed. Five percent did not answer,' the source said. 'We concluded that public sentiment is different from 16 years ago.'
After he was briefed about the poll on Sunday morning, Kim decided to include the proposal in his National Assembly speech Monday.
Building an administrative capital city in the Chungcheong region was a presidential campaign pledge by Roh Moo-hyun in 2002. He took office in 2003."
There's a lot of inside baseball going on here but the gist is this -- about half the population of the entire country is packed in and around Seoul and the surrounding area. Residents in smaller cities, especially young folks, feel pressure to move to the capital in order to find the best jobs and educational opportunities. Those smaller cities in turn feel abandoned, and complain they don't receive adequate development resources from the central government.
What the article doesn't mention is that Seoul remains within missile / artillery distance of North Korea, thereby ensuring it will never be the Asian finance hub that Hong Kong was and Singapore and Tokyo remain.
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