Technical Deep Dive on Managing Urban Expansion in Mega-Metropolitan Area

Theme: Managing Urban Expansion in Mega-Metropolitan Area
Date: December 14(Thurs)-16(Sat), 2017
Venue: Lotte Hotel Seoul, Garnet Hall(37th), Bell-vue Hall (36th)

The Global Development Partnership Center(GDPC) at the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements(KRIHS) held the joint workshop titled ‘Technical Deep Dive on Managing Urban Expansion in Mega-Metropolitan Areas’ from December 14(Thu) to 16(Sat) at the Garnet Hall(37th) and Bell-vue Hall (36th) at the Lotte Hotel Seoul in Korea.

The workshop was attended by about 50 policy practitioners and government officials from 10 countries, including D.R. Congo, South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, Argentina, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, World Bank Group (WBG) regional consultants and staffs. In accordance with the theme of the workshop ‘Managing Urban Expansion in Mega-Metropolitan Area’, participants exchanged Korea’s knowledge and experiences through lectures and field trips and discussed further challenges in participant countries and applicable measures to them.

The joint workshop is taking place in two largest cities, Tokyo and Seoul, both of which have accumulated knowledge and experiences in managing challenges of urban expansion. At the same time, they employed quite different strategies and approaches so this workshop would be a good opportunity to compare their differences and distinctiveness.

In the opening ceremony, Jewon Lee, the Vice Mayor for Administrative Affairs, Seoul Metropolitan Government and Dongju Kim, the President of KRIHS welcomed and set the agenda for Seoul. The Vice Mayor highlighted that after Korean war, Korea experienced rapid growth and achievement in a short term with the help of many countries and now it is time to share Korea’s best examples and know-hows with developing countries.

The president of KRIHS encouraged to share Korean experiences on managing challenges of urban expansion through lectures and field trips and seek a clue to solutions to their present problems under discussion and action plans.

During the lectures, Dr. Songsu Choi, the Senior Advisor at the KRIHS, explained history and summary of Korean policies on metropolitan region growth. Also Dr. Jaemin Song, the professor at the Seoul University introduced policies on development and regeneration of Seoul and Dr. Jeongho Moon, the Research Fellow at the KRIHS explained policies on development of large new towns and the regional transportation in Seoul Metropolitan Region.

On the discussion session, based on thematic lectures and site visits taken in Korea and Japan, each group compared and analyzed cases of two countries. It was a meaningful time to reflect practical implications for responding to urban growth in individual country.

On the action-plan presentations, participants shared implications, country issues and short, medium and long-term plans of the respective country. Also they discussed further projects to be cooperated with the World Bank, TDLC and KRIHS and other demands as well. After their presentation, panels from the organizations provided things to consider for the future collaboration and comments in order to build foundation to support participants to make medium-and long-term plan.

At the closing ceremony led by Phil Karp, (Lead Knowledge Management Specialist, WB) all participants presented what they learned during the workshop, especially from development experiences of Korea and Japan. The Director of GDPC, KRIHS, Jinkyu Chung emphasized expanding knowledge sharing and policy consulting customized for each region’s need through triangle cooperation among World Bank-KRIHS-Partner nation. He also suggested to continually proceed various forms of further projects with partner countries and encouraged to find areas for better cooperation through sharing common interests including urban growth.

[Opening Ceremony(December 14), Lotte Hotel Seoul, Garnet Hall(37th)]​