Naming an industry as heritage: Industrial retention and commercial rents in Seongsu, South Korea

Abstract

In industrial neighborhoods that survive into a city’s expansion phase, a weakened production base and a rising land market are present at the same time. Regeneration plans for such places increasingly name that base as local heritage and commit to retaining it, and evidence on what those commitments deliver, and to whom, remains limited. This study investigates an urban regeneration project in the Seongsu of Seoul, South Korea, which identified the neighborhood’s existing leather and shoemaking industry as an asset to be preserved. Commercial rents from 2014 to 2019 are analyzed using difference-in-differences models, with a supplementary analysis of business entry and establishment counts. The findings revealed a statistically significant positive effect on commercial rents across all business sectors, with the most pronounced effect for the leather and shoemaking industry, which sustained higher entry rates and recorded net growth in establishment counts in treatment areas. Its rents did not follow the prevailing visibility and land value gradients, which points to activity still organized around production. While the results imply that the balance falls toward retention, case studies from the same period leave open the possibility that retention could be the form that displacement takes. As urban expansion continues to reach post-industrial districts, Seongsu is instructive for what made retention possible. For planners who seek to preserve the industrial base, the case points to the need to align the occupants a plan aims to reach with those its instruments protect.