• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.675-687
• /
• 2014

After colonization by the Japanese Empire, Seoul had experienced structural changes during the 1920s. As the number of residents increased dramatically, the land price of Seoul began to skyrocket, bringing about a new type of real estate developers. They invented a new type of hanok, which is very small compared to a traditional hanok, by dividing a large parcel of land into several small pieces. These hanoks were built by Korean developers who ran their business like modern developers today-acquiring large piece of land, developing and selling the property, and even providing financing schemes to buyers in some cases. However, the Korean developers mainly provided housing to the poor Koreans suffering from housing shortage. At the time, many Koreans worried that the City of Seoul would turn into a Japanese city, since the Japanese were trying to expand their real estate development to the north of Cheonggyecheon. However, their development plans have been neglected, as a result of the development activity of the Korean Jerry-builders in the north. The purpose of this paper is to reevaluate the role of the Korean developers in real estate development during the colonization period, especially in the 1920s.