Recently, the original residents in urban areas have been displaced to suburbs due to the increase of property value as well as the commercialization of the residential areas in Seoul. The displacement of low-income household which is negatively related with the social phenomenon in the urban area is often seen as a problem of the gentrification. However, many research interests are more focused on the commercial gentrification as well as the art-led gentrification because these types of the gentrification are much more noticeable issues in Seoul. Accordingly, it is relatively hard to bring the attention as the research performance in the residential gentrification.
In terms of gentrification, it is a phenomenon in which low-income occupiers are displaced by middle-income class as the property value increase in the urban area because the housing market trend tends to change. Gentrification implicates ‘back to the city movement’ that middle-income household tends to moving into the city for taking geographical opportunities. Obviously, gentrification has positive impacts on urban revitalization based on the diverse urban developments. On the other hand, gentrification is seriously recognized as the social issues: displacement, class inequality, social struggle, and neighborhood change.
As the residential mobility and the extra-urbanization in Seoul have accelerated, the residential gentrification is becoming the social issues in Korea. According the annual population mobility statistics data in 2017 by the Statistics Korea, 85.3% of the reasons for the population migration are related to the residential factors. The main cause of the displacement was confirmed through many empirical researches as a high property value pressure, which is judged to be related to the reason for the depopulation the Seoul Metropolitan Government. As the lack of affordable housing and the rise in property value in Seoul, the higher the burden of housing costs for low-income households increases relative instability in residential mobility.
To analyze the residential mobility patterns on gentrification, the residential mobility can be divided into two directions: in-mover which is moving to the urban area from the suburbs and out-mover which is displaced to the suburbs from the urban area. The research purpose is to confirm whether the residential gentrification occurs among the 25 districts in Seoul and what variables are associated with the phenomenon.
The empirical analysis confirms that the residential gentrification is occurring in the 25 districts of Seoul based on the individual factors, the socio-economic characteristics, housing factors, and the transit accessibility are affected. The residential gentrification is classified into three categories: the highly risk for gentrification, the moderate risk, and the low risk. According to the assessment results in gentrification, the 8 districts (32%) among the 25 districts in Seoul is analyzed the high risk for gentrification. The 9 districts (36%) is classified as the moderate and the other 8 districts (32%) is the low risk. Finally, the research would like to suggest the policy implications based the crucial findings on where and why to move based on the residential mobility patterns on gentrification.