The era of development is over, now it's 'charm' that saves cities!
Survival Strategies for Cities in a Shrinking Age

“Will raising the birth rate help revitalize the region?”
“Will attracting businesses revitalize the city?”
For decades, governments and local governments have poured childbirth incentives, industrial complexes, and various development strategies into trying to answer this question.
But the reality is different.
The birth rate remains the lowest in the world, and business attraction is concentrated in the metropolitan area.
The school closes, and the town quietly empties.
However, the compass of policy still remains on ‘growth.’
《The City That Never Disappears》(written by Kyung Shin-won) talks about the only way for a city to survive in an age of shrinkage: ‘charm.’
The insight is that it is not the bigger budget or the flashier development that will ultimately survive, but the cities where people want to stay and return.
This book poses a fundamental question to Korea's urban policy: "What needs to change now?"
The author views the current crisis not as a simple decline, but as an opportunity for a new transformation.


Through firsthand observations of decline and recovery in cities around the world, including the UK, Australia, and the US, we analyze the common strategies of 'cities that have regained their charm'.
The examples of London's Borough Market, Lisbon's Howard Smith's Wharf, and Hay-on-Wye, the book town in Wales, show that the vitality of a city lies not in grand architecture or large-scale development, but in traces of life, community, and citizen participation.
The book proposes five specific strategies for cities to revitalize: discovering and experiencing their charm, co-creating, fostering creativity, and designing for limits.
All these strategies start from local assets and the imagination of citizens, not from massive infrastructure.
Cities now draw their strength not from their ‘appearance’ but from their ‘stories’ and ‘people’.
"The City That Never Disappears" is a guidebook that opens an era of "rediscovery," not development.
It convincingly explains why the city is once again attracting people and the secrets of its charm.

Why are we drawn to certain cities?
Why do people settle in some cities and why do they leave others?
I've traveled to many cities around the world and asked myself these questions.
And we were able to confirm that the relationships between people, the memories preserved in old places, culture and art, and the traces of the lives of residents make a city special, make people stay, and form the city's identity.
In the past, the appeal of a city was found in its physical assets, such as magnificent architecture, historical landscapes, and beautiful streets.
However, today's urban attractiveness is no longer determined solely by its visible environment. International organizations like the OECD and the UN, as well as urban experts, now consider people-centered governance, resident participation, cooperation among various stakeholders, and multifaceted values ​​such as economic power, creativity, well-being, diversity, environmental sustainability, and inclusiveness as key elements.
In other words, today's attractive cities do not simply preserve their heritage.
How to reconcile that heritage with new needs and how residents rediscover and collaboratively manage their assets have become more important criteria.
The concept of urban attractiveness has now shifted from ‘appearance’ to ‘quality of life, community, democratic decision-making and creative reinterpretation.’
--- From "From Development to the Era of Rediscovery"

From the perspective of local governments, ‘youth’ is a key resource that can solve the problem of regional extinction.
Because the region can only survive if it retains young people at all costs, various measures are being developed to support youth settlement.
However, in the current situation where the birth rate has declined sharply, there is a high possibility that regional youth policies will ultimately lead to a zero-sum game.
When young people flock to one area, other areas are put at risk of extinction.
(…) Above all, we need to shift our perspective from viewing young people as mere ‘instrumental beings’ to solving the problem of regional extinction, to creating ‘regions where young people want to stay.’
This means that policies and environments must be designed so that young people can participate as subjects rather than objects of policies, and through this, regional development and sustainability must be pursued together.
--- From "Why do young people leave the city?"

Jane Jacobs argued that for a city to be vibrant, a sufficiently diverse population must be densely packed into a given space.
Sufficient population density keeps city streets and spaces vibrant throughout the day, allowing for a variety of activities and interactions to occur naturally.
The 'sufficient population density' she speaks of does not simply mean the settled population, but is a concept that includes both 'people staying' in the area and 'people coming and going'.
Sufficient population density is essential not only for the vibrancy of a city but also for its safety.
When there are enough people on the streets at all times, the concept of 'eyes on the street', as emphasized by Jane Jacobs, can work properly.
She argued that when diverse people gather and engage in activities on city streets, they naturally observe and monitor their surroundings.
That is, various people, such as local residents, shop owners, and pedestrians, watching each other while performing their daily activities on the streets play a big role in preventing crime and maintaining order.
--- From "Learning from Jane Jacobs, the Urban Observer"

San Francisco has long been recognized as a leading creative city where creative people gather.
However, recent trends such as high prices, rising housing costs, and social inequality are posing a crisis for both the creative class and the sustainability of cities.
Indeed, concerns are being raised that many artists and entrepreneurs are leaving San Francisco because of the high rents or moving to nearby, more affordable cities, potentially weakening the city's cultural diversity and creative energy.
San Francisco's case demonstrates that urban competitiveness comes not only from the influx of creative talent, but also from the inclusiveness and sustainability that enable diverse groups to live together.
Seoul and other Korean cities must also encourage the influx and settlement of the creative class through housing policies, cultural support, and urban infrastructure improvements, while also addressing the negative impacts of income disparity, social exclusion, and housing shortages.
--- From "Conditions for a City Where Creative Talent Gathers"

These cases also provide important implications for our country.
Seoul's Hongdae, Seongsu-dong, Munrae-dong, and Itaewon have also grown into unique cultural districts through the efforts of artists and creators, but gentrification has repeatedly caused rents to skyrocket and local residents and artists to be pushed out.
Rather than simply focusing on improving the physical environment or attracting tourists, institutional mechanisms and long-term support measures must be established to ensure stable settlement of artists and existing residents.
The Arts District experience shows that close collaboration between the public, private and community sectors to preserve a city's unique identity and diversity is key to sustainable urban regeneration.
--- From "Collaboration between Community and Art"

The recent trend of 'deglobalization' reveals this change even more clearly.
The slowdown in economic and cultural exchanges between countries, the intensification of nationalism, and the restructuring of global supply chains have exposed the limitations of growth strategies that rely on external investment and external competitiveness.
This city must survive not only on external capital but also on the basis of its own unique assets, living heritage and cultural characteristics, and the resilience of its communities.
In times of crisis and shrinkage, cities must rediscover their roots and identity and regenerate through endogenous growth models and citizen participation.
London's Borough Market wasn't just any old market.
As merchants and residents come together to reinterpret the heritage of their lives, the market rediscovers its past identity and becomes a force that once again attracts the city.
Howard Smith Wharf in Lisbon is also a former abandoned dock and warehouse that has been reborn as a local lure and community space by local creators.
As a result, it became a place where people could gather and spend time together again.

--- From "From Development to the Era of Rediscovery"