Response to urban challenges by global cities within developmental states: The case of Tokyo and Seoul

Around late 1980s, as the globalization of the economy firmed up, the Global City theory (Saskia Sassen) and World City paradigm (John Friedmann) were introduced. The global/world city theory continues to remain influential to date, judged by the plethora of global city ranking indices that are regularly updated and published. Sassen referred to Tokyo as one of the three leading examples of a Global city, linking it to New York and London, i.e. cities that underwent “massive and parallel changes in their economic base, spatial organization, and social structure” (1991, p.4).

Friedmann asserted the usefulness of the world city paradigm because it could capture the influences of a wide range of factors related to economy, society and culture of the city, including city building processes “into a single meta-narrative” (1995, p. 43). Hill and Kim [2000] noted that Sassen and Friedmann, through global or world city paradigm, assumed that a single global system was being superimposed on nation-states producing “a world city system”. This implied that national institutions, politics and culture that characterize nation-states would become less important in the shaping of the cities, as global forces would transform the economic base, spatial organization and social structure of world’s major cities [Hill and Kim, 2000]. Jacobs [2015] described the contention of world/global city theorists, including Friedmann and Sassen, that cross-border flows in capital weaken the authority of nation-states such that multinational corporations (MNCs) are freed from state constraints. Consequently, “MNCs have re-organized human settlements to best achieve their corporate objectives, and in the process, disembedded cities from their national boundaries” (p.87).

Interest in studies on ranking world/global cities has been sustained over the years, focusing on the idea of “control and command centers” as a key feature to explain the role of top-ranking global/world cities within the globalized economy. These studies seek to assess “the quantity of revenue generated in cities by firms headquartered there”, interpreting it as “an indication of the importance of a city as an economic power; the corporate concentration within a city to wield power in a dynamic world economy” [Taylor and Csomós, 2012, pp. 408–409].

Globalization and the rise of global cities have seen the transfer of some aspects of governance from the nation-state or central government agencies to the level of city government. This decentralization of governance functions is justified in a number of ways. For example, in the context of Hong Kong, Shen [2004] concluded that solely ensuring profit margins of firms and businesses operating in the city cannot enhance urban competitiveness; the scope has to be widened to cover various aspects of quality of life. This puts city governments or local governments in a much stronger position over central government agencies in terms of decision making regarding urban planning and development as being closer to the local community; they can deal effectively with the matters relating to the quality of built environment and social concerns. Decentralization also provides sufficient autonomy for local or city governments to enable them to command required authority and flexibility to deal with powerful potential partners such as MNCs as well as local communities and engage in public private partnership (PPP) initiatives.

This phenomenon of decentralization is also referred to as rescaling. Referring to observations by Dunning [1995] and Macleod and Goodwin [1999] suggesting the decline of the role of the nation-state and a corresponding rise in that of local state or urban governments, Shen maintained:

the nation-state has rescaled much of its authority to the local and regional level such as cities to take full advantage of globalization’s benefits at the scales where the process is most active.

Another trend reported in the literature suggests that the globalization-inspired urban restructuring has prompted a transition from a welfare state to an economic-developmental state. Brenner [1999] reported that such transition processes in Western developed economies are being led by local states (or urban governments) as the main actors. The economic-developmental state role assumed by city governments can be further justified in the face of global economic crises. Shen reported on such a case in Hong Kong, observing that the government’s approach to urban governance before the Asian economic meltdown of 1997 was one characterized by “laissez-faire non-intervention policy” with no direct market intervention by the local government (p. 32). Following the 1997 Asian economic meltdown and other crises, a perceptible change occurred. The local state resorted to “aggressive” intervention “different from the non-intervention policy before”, initiating measures to enhance urban competitiveness along with promoting sustainable development along social, economic and environmental dimensions (pp. 32–33).

Hill [2004] suggested that rather than being influenced predominantly by a top–down global city hierarchy, cities operate within nested hierarchies. Each city, thus, participates at different levels within its “global niche, regional formation, national development model, and local historical context”. Hill maintained that while cities bound “neighbourhoods, households, families, the individual”, they are also “bounded by entities with wider sweep: sub-national regions, nation-states, transnational regions, and the world” (pp.374–375).

In their criticism of Sassen’s [1991] theory about the creation of “a single global system”, Hill and Kim [2000] referred to Tokyo and Seoul to point out fundamental differences that continue to persist among global cities in different geographic zones. They maintained that Tokyo, “the world’s largest urban agglomeration, departs from the world city paradigm on most salient dimensions. Seoul, center of east Asia’s second OECD member and the region’s second-largest metropolis, exhibits the same anomaly” [Hill and Kim, 2000, p. 2168]. It should be noted that Friedmann (1986) himself did “express reservations about the nature of Tokyo’s fit” with other first tier world cities (Waley 2007, p. 1465).

Much of the similarity between these two global cities and the dissimilarity of the two with the rest are explained by the fact that Japan and Korea were latecomers to industrialization. They took up exceptional urbanization and developmental measures to catch up with those on the ‘western development path’ distinguishing themselves from those non-western nations that were held back due to missing out on industrialization, being colonized or opting for non-capitalist ideology [Dutt et al., 1994]. This catching up was possible as it was mainly driven by adopting a ‘developmental state’ approach. A strong relationship based on reciprocity between state policies and private enterprise was institutionalized to facilitate and direct industrialization as part of nation building [Hill and Woo, 2000]. Of course, this ideology is also shared by the two nations largely because of their cultural similarities. Hill and Kim [2000] emphasized that both Tokyo and Seoul economies are not ‘market-centred and bourgeois’ as is the case for Western cities like New York; they are, instead, ‘state-centred and political bureaucratic’.

Chalmers Johnson coined the term ‘developmental state’ in his 1982 book, ‘MITI and the Japanese Miracle’. While the term was used essentially to describe how Japan, a late comer to industrialization, was enabled to catch up with others in terms of economic development by State-led macroeconomic planning, the term ‘developmental state’ has been widely adopted ever since to refer to mainly East Asian economies, such as South Korea, with national governments showing similar characteristics.

Similar to Japan, South Korea is also a late industrializer that then experienced rapid economic development after mid-1950s, following the Korean War. This rapid development is generally explained by intense and close involvement of the bureaucratic governmental state. The Korean government is also seen to not only exert tight control to stimulate private initiative but also manipulate the market to that effect [Amsden, 1992].

Owing to many similarities in political, bureaucratic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as spatial configuration, many sociospatial issues in Japan and Korea seem to be comparable. For example, being the national administrative, political and economic centers of their nations, both Tokyo and Seoul have witnessed massive population influx due to internal migration from regions within the nation. Unlike most major Western cities, however, both cities have not relied on immigrants from overseas to meet their labour requirements due to their postwar national policies. Japan is especially noted for having resisted the pressure to import migrant workers despite facing severe labour shortages exasperated by a super-aging population. Until recently, South Korea has also acted similarly.

International immigration has been significant among OECD countries, driven mainly by recruitment of foreign workers to make up the labour force. Compared to most OECD countries where foreigners make up significant proportions of the workforce, Japan and Korea had extremely low percentage of foreign workers in their workforce. As Figure 4 illustrates, during the 1990s, both Japan and Korea have had very few foreign workers contributing to their national work force, measuring less than 1% [OECD, 2001]. This is despite the severe shortage of labour force mainly attributed to the negative population growth rates experienced by both countries. Since as far back as 2000, both countries have experienced negative population growth rates (United Nations 2014), earning the Japanese the status of a super-ageing and shrinking population, with South Korea not too far behind. In Japan, 34.6 million people (i.e. 27% of the total population) were older than 65 years in 2016; similarly, albeit less strikingly, in South Korea, the number of people older than 65 years reached 6.8 million (or 13.6% of the total population) in 2016, placing it “on the cusp of becoming an ‘aged society’” (Korea Times website: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr).

Figure 4

In more recent years, Korea has increased its intake of foreign workers. According to OECD estimates, while the share of foreigners in the work force has more than doubled in Korea between 2005 and 2016, rising from 1.6% to 3.6%, it is still lower than most OECD countries. In Japan, meanwhile, the share has remained low, with no significant increases over the years [OECD, 2019], albeit in recent years, the government has pushed numerous changes to legislation to ease entry of foreign workers via various training programs.

Attracting migrants from all over their respective nations, the two capital regions, Tokyo Region and SMR, account for 25% and 49% of the national population, respectively, and even higher proportions of the economy [Lee et al., 2016; World Population Review, 2017]. Managing population movement into the capital cities positioned at the top of their national urban systems and keeping the land market pressures reasonably manageable to avoid massive suburbanization have been a major concern for planners in both cases. In 1943, Central Tokyo expanded its boundaries from its 23 ku (ward) areas, i.e. Tokyo-shi (Tokyo City) as it grew westwards into Tama, forming the Tokyo metropolis, i.e. Tokyo-to (Tokyo Prefecture). Subsequently, it also incorporated three prefectures – Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama – to form the Greater Tokyo metropolitan region to balance and accommodate Tokyo’s growing population (Figure 5). Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, for example, began assuming a bed-town role with reference to Tokyo already by the mid-1970s [Marshall, 2003]. Similarly, as Seoul’s population grew alarmingly rapidly, the SMR was established to facilitate population growth in the surrounding region (Figure 6). The SMR played the role of deflecting Seoul’s potential growth and its distribution across Incheon and Gyeonggi provinces.

Figure 5

Figure 6

1.3.1

Effects of global economic events

While both cities were influenced by globalization of the economy that took hold since early 1990s, the two cities have experienced different manifestations of the phenomenon affecting their urbanization patterns differently. In Tokyo, suburbanization had set in since 1960s as people tended to move out to the suburbs in search of more affordable housing as the central areas became unbearably expensive. Sanger [1988] described the phenomena in terms of increased residential mobility to less central but more affordable locations.

However, Tokyo’s growth pattern shows an anomaly due to the bubble economy entrenched during the latter half of the 1980s. Suburbanization gathered momentum between 1986 and 1991 due to an ‘asset price bubble’ driven by spectacular rises in real estate and stock market prices, fueled by uncontrolled credit expansion. However, monetary tightening by Bank of Japan led to bursting the ‘asset price bubble’ with the Nikkei stock index dramatically plummeting in value as property asset prices started to fall drastically in 1992. This ushered in unprecedented and anomalous population movement patterns within Tokyo Region. This bursting of the asset bubble also marked the beginning of a long period of economic stagnation that saw other Asian cities overtake it (Figure 7). Fluchter [2012] reported that Tokyo experienced a turn around of population due to the process of reurbanization that set in around 1995. This forced Tokyo into a position where it had to consider initiating spatial transformations primarily driven by drastic changes in its population movement patterns as well as the imperative to retain Tokyo’s standing as a major global city.

Figure 7

In contrast to Tokyo’s situation, the population of Seoul grew alarmingly rapidly before it began to decline after reaching its peak of 10.7 million in 1993. The decline of Seoul has coincided with a corresponding significant rise of population in its surrounding cities and provinces that were constituted within the SMR. The effective integration of Seoul with the economies of Incheon and Gyeonggi provinces enabled Seoul to manage and distribute its population pressures across the wider region. In order to integrate the populations and economy within the SMR, a number of initiatives to facilitate the creation of new towns were launched.

In January 1997, a Korean industrial conglomerate (chaebol) collapsed under huge debts, raising questions about the sustainability of Korea’s rapid growth strategy. Similar incidents began to occur in other East Asian economies, as the South Korean stock market collapsed, triggering debt and confidence crises. By November, Korea was forced to ask the IMF for assistance. While continuing to facilitate decentralization of Seoul, the 1997 ‘East Asian Economic Crisis’ put pressure upon policy makers to consider initiatives to further engage with the global economy. These included the creation of economic free trade zones and setting up of new business districts or cities within them. As in the case of Tokyo, these initiatives were driven by not only the need to contain and deflect growth pressures on the capital city Seoul due to in-migration from across the nation but also to ensure the integration of the SMR within the global economy.

The Greater Tokyo metropolitan area (or Tokyo Region) comprises the Tokyo Metropolis as well as the prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa (Figure 5). It recorded a population of 35.63 million in 2010, representing 27.8% of the total national population. The Tokyo Metropolis comprises 23 ku or special municipal wards (formerly collectively referred to as City of Tokyo) and another 39 municipalities. The term “Central Tokyo” is used in this paper to refer to the 23 ku (wards) collectively. The Central Tokyo area recorded a population of 8.95 million residents in the 2010 Census, amounting to 68% of total population of Tokyo metropolis (Figures 8 and 9).

Figure 8

Figure 9

According to Fluchter [2012], while both Tokyo and Osaka had been established as the top urban centers within Japan’s national urban system by 1920, a series of developments since the 1930s led to the predominance of Tokyo over Osaka. In 1937, many government agencies relocated to Tokyo as part of centralization of government policy that saw private companies also shifting their headquarters. In the initial postwar period, the Allied occupation force continued the Tokyo-oriented development. The staging of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics further strengthened Tokyo’s predominance nationally, and the signing of the Plaza Agreement for Global trade in 1985 brought about the need for concentration of central functions in this global city [Fluchter, 2012].

1985 Plaza agreement and the beginning of the bubble economy resulted in rapid rises in demand for office space to accommodate central functions as the city’s economy adopted new roles in the global control of capital. This saw global businesses concentrating into Central Tokyo. While land available for office buildings increased by 30% in the five years from 1986 to 1991, the office vacancy rates in Central Tokyo had dropped to extremely low levels of around 0.3% [Mitsui Fudousan, 2015]. This led to abnormal rises in land prices, with the average price of commercial land almost quadrupling in three core inner city ku areas – Minato, Chuou and Chiyoda – and another five surrounding inner city wards between 1983 and 1991. Confronted by such alarming situation, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) devised the strategic policy of transforming Tokyo from a monopolar to a multipolar city, by designating multiple city centers (sub-centers).

This seems to be more or less aligned to Harris and Ullman [1945] model of cities – wherein cities with a single CBD develop into multiple nuclei cities to accommodate expansion and growing complexity of urban functions.

While the overall population of Tokyo Region has grown steadily between 1980 and 2010, this period saw great fluctuations in population levels within the region (Figure 8). The spectacular rise of the Japanese economy accompanied by the asset price bubble affecting Central Tokyo and its bursting around 1991 sparked major movements of urbanization and population changes within the Tokyo Region. In the 1980s, the three prefectures counted within Tokyo Region experienced very high levels of net in-migration from across Japan. After peaking in around 1987/1988, net in-migration in these prefectures steadily declined until the mid-1990s. While the decline was arrested in the latter half of 1990s, the net migration rates were much lower than they were around the mid-1980s.

2.1.1

Fluctuations of population pressures within Central Tokyo wards

During the 1980s, while Central Tokyo experienced a significant hollowing out of population, the rest of the Tokyo Metropolis population had remained quite stable. Sharp hikes in land and property prices squeezed out Central Tokyo residents to more peripheral and affordable locations. This set in motion a massive suburbanization process, with Central Tokyo recording a loss of 80,000 residents in 1988 alone.

The burst of the asset bubble in early 1990s, however, drastically changed the scenario. Residential land prices in Central Tokyo dropped spectacularly, triggering off the process of reurbanization with a significant net in-migration into the 23 central wards. By 1997, a different pattern of urbanization emerged with net migration in Tokyo’s peripheral prefectures dropping steadily, while Central Tokyo’s population began to pick up. This trend saw Central Tokyo surpassing its population of early 1980s by around 2005, and in 2007 alone, Central Tokyo recorded a net gain of about 77,000 people (Figure 9).

Various policy initiatives at state, prefecture and municipality levels were considered to guide the repopulation of Central Tokyo, capitalizing on the reurbanization process (Yabe 2003). Measures were put in place to facilitate an increase in desirable housing supply to ensure that Tokyo could function as command post of the global economy. A push for “vertical, compact, multifunctional city” model was facilitated by legislation passed in 2002 to promote urban revitalization [Fluchter, 2012, p. 25]. This facilitated massive construction of condominiums, spurring a rapid population increase in inner city areas. In the five years between 1996 and 2002, there was a net inflow of 160,000 migrants into the 23 wards, regaining approximately half of the population lost during the bubble economy period. While only around 42,000 new condominium units were built between 1988 and 1992, in the following four years, about 199,000 units were added. In particular, in the three core wards, the number of condominiums multiplied almost ten-fold, increasing from 1,701 in 1988 to 16,776 units by 1996. In 2004, the number of condominiums peaked at over 39,000 units.

The interplay of population fluctuations occurring within Tokyo Region as depicted in Figure 10 reveals the counterbalancing role the three prefectures have played in accommodating the inflow of population into the Tokyo Region from the rest of the country between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Around mid-1980s, Tokyo Metropolis was loosing significant numbers of residents, mainly due to out-migration from within the 23 inner ku areas, while the three prefectures absorbed high rates of in-migration. Between then and the mid-1990s, annual population losses within Tokyo Metropolis decreased, while population gains in the three prefectures reduced conversely. From there onward, population levels more or less steadied in the three prefectures, while the Tokyo Metropolis continued to rise up to 2007.

Figure 10

Seoul city is located within the National Capital region, referred to as the SMR comprising Incheon and Gyeonggi provinces (Figure 6). At the time of ceasefire of the war with North Korea in 1953, Seoul’s population stood at approximately 1 million. In 1978, its population had reached nearly 8 million. For reference, while it took London 130 years to grow from a city of 1 million to one with 8 million residents, Seoul achieved that in only 25 years. Since the start of industrialization in the 1960s, rural to urban migration and outward expansion of the city boundary were the most visible forces pushing the city’s rapid growth. As a result, Seoul’s population rose to 5.5 million in 1970 as its share of the national population reached 18%. Between 1966 and 1970, Seoul maintained an annual population growth rate of 9.8% in contrast to the national population growth rate of only 1.48%. These figures highlight the magnitude and pace of in-migration into Seoul over a relatively short period of time.

Although the trend of population concentration into Seoul eased gradually since 1970, the rate of population growth still remained high. By 1980, Seoul had become a large metropolis with about 8.4 million people, accounting for 22.3% of the national population. Despite the rapid and massive influx of population into the city, some areas on the city’s outskirts remained rural up to the late 1970s until the time when land use conversion from rural to urban started in the Gangnam area (south of the Han River). From around the mid-1970s, the population of the surrounding Incheon and Gyeonggi provinces also began to increase, although at a slower rate compared to that of Seoul. The combined population of SMR or the national capital region consisting of Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi provinces reached over 13 million in 1980, accounting for 36% of the national population. Nonetheless, the relationship between Seoul and its immediate surrounding areas and satellite cities had not been strengthened until 1980.

As depicted in Figure 11, in aggregate terms, the population of the overall SMR has been steadily increasing between 1960 and 2010, albeit the pace has begun to ease somewhat after 1990. A distinctive feature in the growth trend of Seoul and its surrounding areas emerged from the middle of the 1980s onward as the rates of population increases in the surrounding areas overtook that of Seoul. The annual rate of population growth during the 1980–1990 period in the surrounding areas became twice that of Seoul. These developments indicate that rapid metropolitanization occurred whereby interdependence of population and economic activities between Seoul and its surrounding areas was established and strengthened over time. As a result, the combined population of the SMR increased to 18.1 million, representing 42% of the national population. On the other hand, even though the population growth rate of Seoul decreased, the absolute size of Seoul’s population still continued to increase with the resident population in Seoul exceeding 10 million for the first time in 1990.

Figure 11

2.2.1

SMR’s role in arresting Seoul’s hyper growth

The population of Seoul began to decline after peaking at 10.7 million in 1993 and dropped to 9.9 million in 2000. “One of the reasons for the decreased population of Seoul around 1990 was the drop in the number of migrants to Seoul due to the land and real estate prices” [The Seoul Institute, 2015, p.17]. Meanwhile, the population of Incheon and Gyeonggi provinces increased by 43% between 1990 and 2000 (Figure 11). The year 1995 marked the turning point as the population share of the surrounding areas within the SMR had been larger than that of Seoul’s, rising from 43% in 1990 to 54% in 2000. By 2000, the SMR region had grown further, accounting for 46.2% of the entire national population.

The decentralization of population and economic activities from Seoul was facilitated by a deliberative strategy that saw the construction of new towns in nearby areas. In 1980, the region surrounding Seoul housed only one city with a population of over 500,000 that had increased by four by 1990. The large-scale new towns constructed in the early 1990s also increased functional interaction between Seoul and its surrounding areas. This trend has continued, and by 2000, there were seven such cities, while another two were added to the list by 2010.

Thus, Seoul’s surrounding areas seem to have played an effective role in absorbing the population flowing into the SMR from other provinces. They have contributed to the pacification of the rate of population increase in Seoul (Figure 12). Since 2000, the trend of population moving out of Seoul and the concentration of population in the surrounding areas of SMR have not changed considerably. The population of Incheon and Gyeonggi provinces, meanwhile, grew by approximately 3.5 million people during the 1990s and by another 2.5 millions during the 2000s. As a result of Seoul’s population decline and the growth in its surrounding region, the population of Seoul was surpassed by the Gyeonggi province alone during 2000s.

Figure 12

In 2010, the total population of SMR increased to 23.5 million, representing 49% of the national total population. This means that nearly half of the Korean population lives in the metropolitan region occupying just 11.8% of the nation’s land.

The concentration of global command-and-control functions in Tokyo was officially endorsed in the Fourth Comprehensive National Development Plan by the central government [Japan Kokudocho/NLA 1984]. Accordingly, TMG “devised a policy of selective concentration and stratification emphasising the need to facilitate globalization and an information infrastructure in the Central wards and relocate back office functions to the periphery” [TMG, 1986, p. 292]. In 1986, a multipolar urban structure through the creation of several sub-centers for Tokyo had been proposed to accommodate business expansion and relieve congestion from the CBD [TMG, 1986]. Around this time, in 1986 the central government also passed the Private Participation Promotion Act, referred to as the Minkatsu Act, to promote the utilization of private capital in public construction and infrastructure projects [Hayakawa and Hirayama, 1991]. Critics of the Minkatsu policy blamed it for promoting rapid private development on public land that contributed to exacerbating housing unaffordability [Hayakawa and Hirayama, 1991; Vliet and Hirayama, 1994]

During the bubble economy, a major waterfront development spreading over reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay was conceived as a comprehensive urban development in the shape of a self-contained new town at Odaiba. The significance of this particular waterfront development could be seen from the fact that it featured as one of the two Japanese ‘global’ projects selected by Marshall [2003] in his book showcasing ten ‘global’ projects from across Asia. Built on reclaimed land with no prior development and located centrally in relation to the city, the waterfront area offered the ideal urban expanse to accommodate new office development (Figure 13). Saito noted, “The waterfront sub-centre was chosen as a primary area to enhance Tokyo’s global communication and exchange function” (2003, p. 295). On this site, Tokyo’s governor Suzuki also planned to set up a very ambitious open-air international exhibition called ‘Tokyo Frontier’ “to show off how the futuristic city was to be built with the aid of new technology to improve human life in the city [TMG, 1989]” [Saito, 2003, p. 297].

The economic recession following the bursting of the bubble economy slowed down the implementation of the project as investors pulled back. In 1995, Yukio Aoshima successfully contested the election of Governor on the pledge to cancel the Tokyo Frontier exhibition [Seguchi and Malone, 1996] and “promises of revising the project” [Saito, 2003, p. 299]. However, while the exhibition was cancelled, despite going through extensive reviews, the main framework of the plan largely remained in place, with only minor modifications [Seguchi and Malone, 1996; Saito, 2003]. The next governor, Ishihara, who took office in 1999 and set about to revitalize the economy of Tokyo, gave the project a shot in the arm by reemphasizing its role as “a strategic area to lead the globally orientated economy [TMG, 2001]” [Saito, 2003, p. 299]. The waterfront development was officially designated as one of the sub-centers, aimed at accommodating the socioeconomic trend of globalization and strengthening Tokyo’s economic advantage.

Saito [2003] commented on how the nation-state went about trying to influence the outcome of the development project through debates and decision making. Saito contended that the state did not influence the conception and implementation of the planning project by imposing “government order, or command-and-control in crude forms”. Instead, the strategic national policy was influenced “through carefully crafted institutional arrangements in which the public and private sectors maintained a delicately balanced relationship with consensus and conformity within the framework of the capitalist developmental state” [Saito, 2003, p. 304].

While the original idea of the waterfront development as a teleport was a TMG initiative in association with the Bureau of Port and Harbour (BPH), within months, it was reviewed and transformed into a new business center development through central government influence. The responsibility for coordination of the project was shifted from BPH to other entities under the influence of national ministries. TMG was pressurized “to allocate more space for redevelopment to contribute to the Minkatsu Policy” [Saito, 2003, p. 300]. The Governor was clearly annoyed at this interference and insisted that TMG should be in charge of making the basic plan and lead the process, albeit in consultation with central government ministries. He objected to the central government’s focus on short-term interests of “boosting consumption and easing trade frictions with the US” [Saito, 2003, p. 300].

Siato concluded that the project was a political initiative by the Governor that almost got hijacked by the central government’s insistence on expanding office space component. There was an eventual compromise through a process involving “mutual dependence with strong rivalry”. It was clear that “they both needed each other despite fierce competition for the leadership” [Saito, 2003, p. 301]. In short, both actors had to learn to cooperate and collaborate to see the project implemented.

The evolution of the future development trajectory for Greater Tokyo and the status of OMY as its CBD are described as an “ideological battle” by Dimmer [2012, p. 94]. The Tokyo Waterfront Development project discussed above also played a major role in this battle.

In the spirit of decentralization, TMG had released ‘My Town Tokyo’ [1982, 1986] strategy to prevent over-congestion and further CBD growth by proposing a multipolar metropolitan region with sub-centers to absorb future development in Tokyo. “This policy change was symbolically stressed by the relocation of the city hall [Office of Tokyo’s Governor] from Yurakucho to Nishi-Shinjuku” [Dimmer, 2012, p. 94]. The relocation occurred between 1988 and 1990.

Deviating from the TMG’s decentralization policy, however, the National Land Agency (NLA) and several ministries continued to suggest the utilization of the land around Tokyo Station to accommodate high-intensity development with high-rise towers. This was inspired by the opportunities for private development created due to the privatization of Japan National Railway in 1987. The NLA advocated the need to create a grand design for downtown Tokyo, perhaps in the spirit of the central government’s Minkatsu policy. A particularly bold proposal by this lobby was seen as having negative visual impact on the Imperial Palace drawing strong public criticism. Taking advantage of the public backlash, TMG promptly moved to counter the pressure of such CBD renewal plans by announcing its ‘Waterfront Sub-centre Basic Development Plan’ [Dimmer, 2012]. The development plan at this stage re-emphasized Odaiba’s role as Tokyo’s information and communication hub, retaining its characteristics as a major business cum leisure center, decentralizing new office space development within the city.

A relentless push by NLA for redevelopment of the downtown won the support of Chiyoda ward and 74 private companies, forming the ‘OMY District Development Council’ in 1988. The council came up with a redevelopment strategy that proposed a unified international business center at the CBD [Dimmer, 2012, p. 95]. The Governor, while maintaining Odaiba waterfront initiative, eventually endorsed the NLA narrative of the need for a grand downtown for Tokyo. To this effect, he proposed a reimagination of “the old mono-functional CBD as a new ‘amenity business core (ABC)’, effected through the setting up of new development principles for Tokyo’s central wards” [Dimmer, 2012, p. 95].

Referring to TMG’s policy of decentralizing Tokyo from a unipolar to a multipolar city to facilitate Tokyo’s functions as a global city, Dimmer [2012] described the dealings between TMG and LMA as an ideological battle to shape the center of Tokyo. He contended that the revaluation of the built environment “did not simply stem from a changed mindset of ‘the government’” but evolved through a “complex interplay between local and global actors and discourses, hard and soft institutions and a specific spatio-culturally induced system of perception, interaction, representation and language” [Dimmer, 2012, p. 98].

The 1997 economic crisis served as a stimulus for the Korean government to increase its engagement with the globalizing economy. In the preceding years, the City of Incheon was promoting the idea of developing a new town, Songdo. Songdo or Songdo International Business District eventuated as a master-planned city spread over 1,500 acres of reclaimed land situated 65 kilometers to the west of Seoul (Figure 14). Within the SMR, Incheon had played a major role in relieving population pressure from Seoul over the previous decades. Sondgo was primarily a business district, developed as one of the towns within Incheon Free Economic Zone.

Songdo was conceived in the 1980s, as the Incheon city government began reclaiming wetlands to develop a new international city and replace its outdated industrial structure and reliance on the manufacturing industry. Songdo was envisaged as a major global project that sought to raise the nation’s competitiveness to attract foreign direct investment. In order to maintain its competitive edge within the globalizing economy, the Korean central government commissioned the town in 2001, signing an memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Gale and Wentworth, a US real estate investor and developer in a partnership with POSCO, a large industrial chaebol [Lichá, 2015]. This could also be seen as a measure to consolidate Seoul’s global city status due to its location within SMR.

Songdo was clearly conceived as a global project. Lichá notes that Songdo was planned “as a city for foreigners [Kuecker, 2013; Shwayri, 2013] and their convenience has been repeatedly pointed out. A non-Korean city for non-Koreans with large avenues, Central Park and English street names … with English used as the lingua franca [Kuecker, 2013]” [Lichá, 2015, p. 9].

In 2003, Songdo was designated by the national government as part of the Incheon Free Economic Zone [Kim, 2006]. However, there was a long period between its inception and official designation. During this period, due to the project’s scale and complexity and the involvement of an overseas investor, it became a “product of complicated interactions between the national and city governments” [Lichá, 2015, p. 1625].

This global scale undertaking potentially affected the nature of politics of urban development under the prevalence of a developmental state. Shin et al. [2015] have analyzed the project from a perspective of scalar changes it brought about in the growth regimes. They contended that through this experience, a range of actors including “the Incheon city government, international developers, and civic organizations in addition to the nation state [came] to form a growth regime”. They described “how scalar tensions [arose] within the dynamics of collaboration and competition” [Shin et al., 2015, p. 1626].

The established dominance of the nation-state and a hierarchy between the government and businesses had meant that it was expected that the nation-state would control or interfere in the activities of businesses of mega-city projects [La Grange and Jung, 2004]. The dominance can be seen from 1962 Land Expropriation Act that enables the state to expropriate land for industrial and commercial/residential development. This is rationalized by the prioritization of national economic growth over free market operations, as part of the developmental state mentality.

To a large extent, however, the development of Songdo entailed collaboration and competition between the city government and international developers with the nation-state and its ministries as key actors. Shin et al. described how “their common interests emerged as a crucial driving force of the growth regime” [2015, p. 1626].

Incheon city government emerged as an active actor. It was the initiative of some local officials in the late 1980s that envisioned the transformation of Incheon into an international city. They sought permission from the state to circumvent the Capital Region Management Law, enacted in 1984 that controlled development within SMR and eventually succeeded after 15 years in 2001. While the project enjoyed strong support from the Mayor during the first eight years, the new Mayor who took over office in 2010 was critical of the development pointing to “inequality between Songdo and the old city center of Incheon” [Shin et al., 2015, p. 1626].

There was a significant friction between the various key actors, between the city and the nation-state and even between two government ministries about who had the authority to influence and control the development. Shin et al. reported that early signs of friction appeared when the nation-state sought to appoint the Director for the authority following complaints by a former chair of undue interference by the Mayor and the city parliament in the working of Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority (FEZA). The state then tried to bring FEZA under nation-state control by installing a Special Purpose City government, a move that was fiercely objected to by the city government. This incident seems to be a defining moment, marking “the shift from local initiatives and national reluctance to national dominance and local resistance” [Shin et al., 2015, p. 1630].

As Shin et al. [2015] explained, the East Asian Economic Crisis served as a national crisis reaffirming the ideology of national interest. It “brought about the reemergence of the nation-state as an umpire in competitions among cities”. The crisis “effected a power shift from a selected city, Incheon, to a selector, the nation state”. The Ministry of the Knowledge Economy assumed the role of selecting and rejecting proposed FEZA initiatives for consideration (p. 1630). It seems that the city’s position had already been weakened in terms of influencing the shaping of the project before the formal signing of the MOU for the project with an overseas partner.

The East Asian Economic Crisis hit Korea in 1997, before the Incheon airport became operational, and an MOU for the project was signed off with Gale and Wentworth Company in 2001. In 2002, the President of Korea announced his support assuring smooth implementation of the project. Table 1 shows the key actors in urban development that emerged over time in relation to the Songdo development. It is interesting to note how the number of actors playing key roles increased as the project progressed. Although the city government initiated the project and played a key role in leading the project, the nation-state took more control in later years. “The discourse of globalization has further promoted the ideology of national competitiveness” [Shin et al., 2015, p. 1629].

Local civic organizations appeared in the process as “antigrowth regime” and opposed the FEZ policy, describing it as being neoliberal and pro-capital and claiming that it would undermine “labor rights, environmental regulation, and public education”. However, they could not impact the processes or structures whereby they could play a role in “the development or in the decision-making, as their financial and political resources were limited” [Shin et al., 2015, p. 1630]. Once the Ministry of the Knowledge Economy designated Songdo as a promising FEZ in 2004, the project’s implementation became inevitable and the opposition put up by civic organizations dissolved.