Seongnam-si
Built in 1968 to house squatters forcibly relocated from Seoul. Pangyo Techno Valley hosts 1,800+ tech companies generating 202 trillion won (~$150B) by 2023—22% of Gyeonggi Province GDP. Bundang apartment prices rank 2nd-highest in the province.
Seongnam was built to house people Seoul didn't want. In 1968, the Seoul city government forcibly relocated squatters from central Seoul to the hills south of the capital—Gwangju-daedanchiji (Gwangju Large-Scale Land Development). Inadequate infrastructure triggered the 1971 Gwangju-daedanchiji uprising: residents who had been promised housing, water, and jobs received barren hillside plots with no services. The Korean military suppressed the protests. Seongnam incorporated as a city in 1973, born from displacement. Like kudzu colonizing disturbed soil, the displaced population established itself with aggressive tenacity in hostile terrain.
The city's transformation from slum relocation site to Korea's technology hub represents one of Asia's most compressed phase transitions. Pangyo Techno Valley, opened in 2011, now hosts over 1,800 technology companies including NCSoft, Kakao, Naver (Korea's dominant search engine), and Nexon. Annual revenue reached 202 trillion won (~$150 billion) by 2023, accounting for 22% of Gyeonggi Province's GDP. Over 73,000 workers—68% in their 30s and 40s, 36% in R&D—create the source-sink dynamics of a district that absorbs talent from across Korea.
Seongnam's residents occupy one of Korea's most economically stratified cities through ecological succession: displacement camp transformed into satellite city transformed into tech hub. Bundang New Town (developed 1989-1996) was one of Korea's first planned satellite cities—apartment prices now rank second-highest in Gyeonggi Province, exceeding many central Seoul districts. The original northern districts retain working-class demographics, creating a city where billion-dollar tech campuses and 1970s relocation housing coexist within 10 kilometres.
The Seongnam model influenced Korea's subsequent new town developments: Ilsan, Pyeongchon, Dongtan. Each followed the ant colony formula—government-directed construction absorbing Seoul's population overflow through satellite strategy. Korea's chaebols maintain facilities throughout the Seoul Capital Area, and Seongnam captures spillover from companies priced out of Gangnam through competitive exclusion. Land prices run 30-40% below Seoul's premium districts, attracting firms the way pioneer organisms colonize nutrient-rich habitat that dominant species have not yet claimed.