• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.33-50
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• 2016

Hannam-dong, which lies at the eastern part of Yongsan-gu in metropolitan Seoul has been known as one of the affluent area, but actually it is divided into different sub-areas including poor ones. Although it used to be a quiet residential neighborhood, be they rich or poor, some streets (gil) have become the places of creative economy since the late 2000s. The place-making of Hannam-dong is accompanied by taking-place of different creative classes in different sub-areas, and there have emerged contestation, negotiation and clash among them at the contact zone. While the big companies such as Samsung explores their own version of cultural/creative entrepreneurialism in one sub-area, the actors that can be dubbed as 'creative small producer' and/or 'creative underlass' produce Hangangjin-gil and Usadan-gil as artistic-cum-economic communities by deploying cultural capital. All in all, Hannam-dong is an interesting case that different types of gentrifications are produced by different actors in different sub-areas, which results in producing another kind of 'community of strangers' where different (creative) classes share a physical location, but do not have lasting social interactions and communicative networks.