Cheonggyecheon!

Cheonggyecheon!

It's fun to say, and it's a great urban renewl project right in the center of Seoul. The Cheonggyecheon  (gaecheon = "open stream") was a stream created during the Joseon Dynasty for city drainage. Later on after the Korean War, the stream became littered with a large influx of people moving into the city, thus polluting the area. In 1958, in an effort to clean the city up, the stream was filled in with concrete and transformed into an elevated highway. Luckily in 2003, there was a major effort to restore the stream to re-introduce nature back into Seoul.

There is criticism about this project, such as though it brings nature back into the city, it is not the most sustainable. In order to maintain this body of water, water has to be manually pumped in. In any case, it does bring people together, and the residents love gathering here.

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