Finding Home in a Changing Seoul

Flowers from my backyard

Seoul has been my home since I was four. Most of my childhood memories come from our old house with a backyard, where my siblings and I would plant flowers and small trees. We would run around the space every day without thinking much about it, the same way I moved through the rest of my surroundings. Seoul didn’t really feel like a “city” to me back then, but rather just a home and a familiar environment I didn’t feel the need to analyze.

As a city in a country known for rapid economic growth and urbanization, Seoul has been shaped by constant change and reconstruction. Growing up there, development felt natural. I always saw new construction sites, buildings torn down and replaced, and new apartment complexes. Small houses and low-rise neighborhoods gradually disappeared, but as a child, I rarely questioned these changes and thought of them as normal. Seoul moved quickly, and I think I learned to move with it. Looking back, I realized that this fast pace led me to accept change and, naturally, I assumed that progress always meant improvement. But that way of thinking lasted only until my own space was actually affected by the “change.”

Changed view after moving

I didn’t realize how rare a backyard like ours had been in my city until much later, when our family moved out into a high-rise apartment located in one of the busiest neighborhoods in Seoul. In this new apartment, I was surrounded by roads, bridges, and constant traffic, and endless chains of cars seemed to move through the neighborhood. Everything outside my window had changed: the view, the sounds, and even the smell.

There wasn’t necessarily a single moment that made this change obvious, but it was more like a gradual awareness that something was missing. The absence of small outdoor spaces stood out to me, and I realized that I had taken everything for granted in the past. As I paid more attention, Seoul started to feel less like the homey environment I was familiar with, but more like something that was actively shaping the lifestyles of people. I realized that the city was actually selective about what kind of spaces it allowed to remain, and that shift in perspective changed how I moved through the city.

With this new perspective, I noticed some patterns in the city’s design. Most outdoor spaces in Seoul are designed for efficiency and movement rather than rest, with wide roads, long crossings, and few places for people to linger. Sidewalks are often narrow or interrupted, clearly showing how walking is considered secondary to driving. Green spaces do exist, but they are often clearly separated from everyday paths rather than being integrated into them, and public spaces are not very social, encouraging people to pass through quickly.

Comparing this to what I once thought my city looked like, I realized that Seoul prioritizes speed and circulation over smaller, human-scale spaces. My old backyard stood in contrast to the highly structured environment surrounding my apartment. While the apartment offers height and density, it lacks the kind of green space that had once been part of my daily life. Though I don’t think Seoul’s prioritization of large-scale solutions is inherently negative, it does make it clear that certain ways of living are becoming less possible within the city.