S. Korea is not a real country. It's a corporation with a state.

I live in Pyeongtaek, and it’s MUCH more likely to see a small dog in a baby stroller than it is a human baby 😢

0.7 birthrate. That means each generation will be less than half the prior.

This proves that everything that looks shiny is not gold.

Korean obsession with Seoul is so weird. You cant tell me that cities like Busan, Incheon, Daegu doesn't have it all. Incheon is so close to Seoul and it has it absolutely all... foreigners, bars, restaurants, every possible shopping option, good universities, good private schools, best airport in the country, good nightlife...and if you miss something you can hop on the subway, bus, car and you will be in Seoul in hour or less. Apartments are so much cheaper in Incheon...same apartment that would cost you 1 million euros in Seoul is around 350-400k euros in Incheon. In Suwon is even cheaper and in Busan prices are like in Incheon.

I live in Korean suburb and things are working out in the way that more and more people are moving out of Seoul to enjoy relaxing and laid back lifestyle compared to Seoul after experiencing too much competition in Seoul. I think it is of relief that the problem is being solved naturally

Britain should really move its capital too. London is strangling other cities, from as close south as Birmingham to as far north as Glasgow. Somewhere in the middle of the island and more down to earth would be great, like Liverpool, Manchester or Leeds.

Over 10 years in South Korea. This is a good video but it's the culture as a whole, as well as industrialised life more generally, that is strangling the country, not just Seoul.

One of the problems with the new xapital in its design phase that absolutely didn't help was the lack of any real public transport, which would've been easier to build there than in Seoul, yet they instead only added buses like afterwards

Same thing is happening with the UK, London is supporting the rest of the country.

The only solution I could think of is when korea decided to push more for remote working, online education and all those kinda things that don't require you to necessarily be on seoul. Maybe even create an insentive for companies to pay more money to their workers who don't work in seoul and openly talk about it.

Same thing happens in Mexico with Mexico City. Everything has to go through here and then to the rest of the country. At least we have two other major cities that balance it out and they are growing because México City is getting to expensive and too crowded

My sister works as a programmer in Seoul, and she pays 1000 dollars per month for rent to live in a shipping container in the rooftop. It’s not even in the center of Seoul but a shabby corner of the city

This is what happens when you "sell your Seoul"... Jokes aside, this is exactly why I'm baffled whenever somebody plans to move to Korea. Many people there are depressed, and this is why. They did this to themselves, and it's a shame to see foreigners borderline throw their lives away just because they're a little too obsessed with Kdramas and Kpop...

It is good to have multiple major cities as it makes the country more resilient, if one city fails or is nuked, the whole country won't fail completely. The US, China, India don't have an overwhelming dominant primate city and it has allowed for more regional specialization

omg finally someone said the real issue. There's literally ONE city in this entire country, compared to even Japan etc

Their focus and over reliance on Seoul is shocking. In Japan, they have Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka and numerous other smaller cities as their engines for economic growth alongside Tokyo. In Germany they have Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Koln, Hamburg, Augsburg, Bremen as the engines for economic growth alongside Munich and Berlin. In India they have Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata as economic engines for India alongside New Delhi. Why Korean government and planners did not spread out the economic development evenly throughout the country for years, instead just focusing on Seoul alone?

Isn’t it normal that when things get more competitive and less pleasant, people are less able to care for someone else? Plus: why would you create children when it’s simply no fun anymore to live anyhow…

Large metropolises are sterilization zones for any population. People procreate more and build stronger families in smaller and dispersed communities that are more manageable and tightly knitted, where everyone knows and trusts each other and the wealth is more fairly distributed.

you should really not be taking sponsorships from betterhelp considering they're notorious for privacy violations

I totally understand how insecure young couple feel about their future today. I constantly worry about my daughter. She is doing ok but I can see her daily stress. Poor girl is only 23. She already told me she doesn't plan to have kid cuz the future world is not stable. Why bring one more human to this uncertain world.

I live in SK. I visited the city wall museum in Dondaemun and learned that Soeul has ALWAYS been the center of the country. Royals and government the only iones permitted to live there- they even had to get permission to even do repair work. It reminded me of Pyongyang in North Korea.

this makes me realize that one of the reason the US is great economically is its nearly fair distribution of development. yes california and NY are shining the brightest but most other states are great too

Same can be said about my country Singapore, we are now facing a fertility rate of less than 1. Due to cultural, economical issues, many people are not willing to have kids. And understandably so. The future isn’t looking bright when the middle class are getting sandwiched with each passing year

It seems like Seoul has the 1980s New York City syndrome

Isn't another reason it's close proximity to the DMZ

Seoul's TFR is already at 0.51. And the highest regional TFR is just 0.88, that's of all regions in the country, urban and rural.

My family isndeom Senegal and we have a similar problem: Everything is in Dakar and everyone is trying to move to Dakar. As a consequence, the city is overpopulated already and extremely expensive relatively to everyone's salary.

Having been to Seoul. It's a very samey feeling city. There's a soul crushing feeling looking from the top of Namsan and seeing endless blocks of similar looking apartment complexes as far as the eye can see. Architectural variety is important I suppose.

I have a 6yrs old nephew who live in Seoul and he told me in his kindergarten, Korean kids value their friends which apartment they live, what car their parents drive and what their parents do for a living. If some kids fall below average, they categorize those kids as "peasants/slave" status.

It should be noted that KR is very mountainous. Mountains drive infrastructure and trasnportation cost and therefore make industrial development very difficult. Maybe KR should try to develop a belt around its costline, kinda the thing Spain is doing involuntarily.

Every country that experience high development, industrialization and urbanization face the same issue.. Low birth rate

Seoul isn’t the only capital where it has drained the life of the country. The classic example is Paris - it has pretty much dominated France for the last half millennium that no other capital has dominated another country. The French are finally pushing back - that’s probably a main root cause of the Gilets jaunes, and it’s interesting to see that this is the first mass movement in France that actually arose outside of Paris.

It sucks that Dom accepted the BetterHelp sponsorship.

In every country, people flock to the major cities for job opportunities and education. South Korea is hardly unique. The question is, why aren't other countries dying because of this phenomenon?

I just spent some time in Gwangju, and loved it there! It’s so much less chaotic than Seoul, and the people are much nicer. You get all of the big city amenities without the headaches. The government should just promote some of the existing cities as places for commerce.

Not just in South Korea, in some other countries/ subnational administrative divisions, the biggest city usually pulls in population and capital so much to the extent of leaving smaller cities/towns/villages languishing with diminishing population base and resources.

I was watching a show called Go After Breakfast where the host wakes up guest in their house, makes them breakfast, and interviews them. One ep had a famous singer whose apartment could only be rented and not buy since, the listing price is apparently too high to be put on the market to sell which is insane to me.

With such a bithrate, will the competition for school kids be less in 5-10 years time? If there are less young people competing for places in top schools or universities, it shoud get better for the kids?

They should’ve named the new Capital spirit

i was in SK from 1995/1999. the population of seoul went from 14 million to 17 million. the population of SK did not really change that much. everyone was moving from the rural south of SK to seoul. they were building those domino apartment buildings so fast, there was one city that sprang up SE of seoul, that was named NEW CITY. that's was the road signage said. they couldn't come up with a name for the city before it was built. funny thing, Pusan changed it's name to Busan and now it's something different. i remember asking the guy i was with one time how close we were to the border. we were just outside camp campbell. his reply was, "20 minutes by car, 5 seconds by mig."

how about moving all industries to rural areas, and banning counstruction of new ones in seoul? an industrial park can liven up the economy of the place and people would move there. then build low cost housing for the employees, and the rest will follow. there will be new schools and universities, and the industry there must prioritize graduates from the new local schools and universities. this is important since you are making it easier for people to help in the local economy first before even thinking of leaving for seoul.

Seoul is within North Korean range. Thats probably the real reason why they are moving the capita.

The birth rate is also declining because of a movement of South Korea women as the men do not treat them equally, it got to a point where men were stabbing women in the streets so as a protest women decided to not have children which forces them to reconsider how they treat women

This happened in Germany when it got separated in 1945 and then again when it got reunited in 1990. Berlin to Bonn to Berlin. 😊

First of all, it is wrong to say that it is concentrated in Seoul. It is correct to say that it is concentrated in the metropolitan area. In fact, Seoul's population has decreased. And although it is true that it is concentrated in the metropolitan area, that does not mean that all cities across the country will disappear. It is expanding across metropolitan cities. In other words, it is true that urbanization continues to progress and is concentrated in the metropolitan area. The premise that the Republic of Korea will fall simply because it is concentrated in Seoul is wrong.

I did road trip in Korea, I saw many abandoned village in rural area. It’s a bit sad. But I understand that many new gens want to work in big corporates hence coming to Seoul. Life is struggling here, things are even more expensive after Covid including rent.

Kind of the same in Italy. Most people always think you can find a job in the Northen part, especially Milan, which in reality is one of the most expensive places to live in (to me still a place with a mentality I never was able to grasp in all these years, cuz not everyone there just run to work and earn their salary). People always lament they barely arrive at the end of the month. True the rent is one of the highest in the country, but never mention that doing things like going to restaurants or drinking with friends has its cost there. In other words, i just see lack of coherency all the time.

Seoul is the closest thing we have to Cyberpunk IRL (along with Tokyo). We should pay close attention to its lessons and problems.

brother, love your videos, but man, do something about your audio, always had to turn my volume up way too high when watching your vids

Ah yes, South Korea the real life equivalent to Night City. A country ran by corporations.

Very well summarized.

spend a few weeks in korea last year. every young person i talked to in seoul was desperate to move abroad.

I live in South Korea, near Seoul but not in the city itself. Seoul really does have everything in it and 90% of the English speaking population, 2,250,000 people, all live in Seoul. It's not like comparing New York City (pre-2020s, not the crapsack it's become under Hochul) to the rest of the state, back in the US. It'd be like comparing New York City to Delaware and Wyoming. There are some good big cities that aren't Seoul, like Suwon and Incheon, but they're all in the same state as Seoul, Gyeonggi, and within an hour away, anyway. The _only_ good major city outside of Gyeonggi is Busan, Korea's version of San Diego, and it's all the way on the other side of the country in the southeast. Between that, you just have Gwangju, which is full of old people, Daegu, which is just a giant crater of humidity and has nothing special in it, and Daejeon, which _sucks_ and is so boring. So if Seoul is Korea's New York City, the only other options would be to live in Korean Tampa, Houston, or Cleveland. So you can see why the greater Seoul area is so appealing to many people, even if living in Seoul-proper, has its problems.

Exactly the same problem in Denmark. Copenhagen eating more and more of Denmark, and already now politicans only prioritize Copenhagen and not the rest of the country.

Putting all your eggs in one basket 🧺

The Korean peninsula is basically an island

Not sure this phenomenon has a name, but im calling it Capital Overcentralization, this isnt happening only in SK, but with Moscow and St Petersburg for Russia, im sure that many commenters can lean in and opinate if this happens in their country as well

It's similar to the urban/rural divide many other countries experience, not really unique to South Korea alone. People go where opportunity is, and it's generally not in small towns off in the countryside.

If I could just add a few observations of my own, which are admittedly based on my experience working in SK more than a decade ago... First, the top teacher's university in the country is located in the center, in Cheongju. This is 한국교원대학교 (Korea National University of Education), known nationally as "Kyowondae". I had the privilege of teaching there from 2008 - 2010, and students (as well as licensed school teachers participating in professional development programs) came from all over SK. Yes, the "SKYvy" league is situated firmly in Seoul - Seoul National University, Korea University (KU) and Yonsei University, but KNUE is still a top-ranked public research university, and it is located practically out in the middle of rice fields in a village called "Miho" outside the main center of Cheongju-si. I always found it very impressive that they put their national teacher training university there:) Second, the southern city of Busan was an exceptional place to live, so I used to hear, with many foreigners and Koreans leaving Seoul and the surrounding areas to relocate there. I remember that ferries would run regularly between Busan and Fukoaka, Osaka, and other Japanese port cities. There were also numerous jobs in Busan, and it was known as a significant tourist attraction in the spring and summer months. Again, this was over ten years ago, and I have not been to SK since I left my job at Kyowondae, so I cannot speak to the situation on the peninsula today. Seoul was always the most sought after destination, but numerous other cities (Daegu, Daejeon, Jeonju, Suwon etc) seemed to be thriving as just as well. I hope the situation hasn't become as dire as it is portrayed in this video.

Dang good video. But you gotta do something about that audio, couldn't hear anything without my speakers.

South korea might have stronger population decline exactly because of the population living in basements and mini units dur to poverty, and hyper competitive and scarce opportunity society. They need to commit 2% of gdp to fixing housing until median rental is below 30% of median income, and housing value increases at only 2% of original sale value per year. I think most countries should commit to such goals over a span of 50 years.

I stayed in Incheon/Seoul area for about six months back in 2022. I saw lots of baby carriages filled with... dogs and kids play zones taken over by... elderly people. It really is a rapidly aging country.

I don't know if the people obsessing with 'Seoul', when the City have no 'Soul'. *badum-ts-ts 🥁

It appears that the problem of a nation state having the same city as its political capital AND business centre was recognised in the 1800s. Note that it was about that time in Anglo North America that new states & provinces would deliberately choose a smaller city to be the capital, than the primary business city. That would be a very interesting topic to follow. Japan has a very similar demographic problem where most smaller towns are shrinking while Megatropolis Tokyo keeps on growing.

What about one of the largest collection of 155mm artillery guns that have already been zeroed in on the capital ?

Daejeon is such a good place to live. It’s an hour away from Seoul and has a techno valley and it’s not overwhelming like Seoul. I lived there for 3 years

10:17 It should be noted that that government building is one VERY long building. It's insane. I've been to Sejong a few times and I was allowed up on the roof and walked along a bunch of it. It's insane. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Para que construir uma nova capital? Basta escolher outra cidade já existente, adaptá-la e torná-la capital. Pusan, por exemplo.

Sounds like Singapore

In the 70s and 80s, there were mobile hospitals that traveled the countryside offering tubal ligation for free. When ever people try to interfere with the natural order of life, catastrophe happens.

Tokyo is the same. Cram schools, high level education and the best companies are in Tokyo. However, Osaka is rising (imo) and Okinawa has a great birthrate and feels like a totally new country. I feel those cities will rise in Japan in the future. Nagano is super great to live as the fruits and veggies are the best in the country.

This video is actually genuinely underated and damm ❤😂🎉.

North Korea playing that long game lol.

Tokyo is very similar. Rural japan is disapearing. Its crazy we see this in more heavily in Asian capitalist countries but not in western ones, or at least not as bad

I was born in SK and living in Seoul for 17 years. Even in seoul there are many empty towns and buildings. This city is literally killing itself.

I said it before but why is the volume of your videos so low compared to every other on KZfaq ? Always have to turn the volume of my device all the way up to hear what you're saying

If you think financially about kids, you will never have them. Most parents do not have stable finances before they become parents but they still make kids.

Provide links to your research would be nice

A primary example why you don't want to centralize your economy...

I think Bangladesh should also build a new Capital

Thx nice video

They needed permission from President Sammy first. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 They didn't get it.

Thats like living in the US and all your opportunities for a better life are only tied to either NYC, LA, and San Francisco.

As long as politicians refuse to do anything about the cost of living and of raising children, they have no right to complain about birth rates. Especially towards women, who face even more challenges in a deeply patriarchal, and actually misogynistic, society like the Korean one. It's the system that's broken, not the actors.

Australia might have it right with their capital city - Canberra. Everyone thinks it’s Sydney and they have several cities that share the bulk of the population and big business.

This is the problem of most countries Keeping all eggs in one basket, increasing the risk of failure while burdening the hand that carries it, eventually negating the advantage of having 100 eggs Decentralised development is true development Focusing only one one city leads to perceived higher per capita income but the high cost of living negates that income growth. Small houses, congested roads, insane education cost, heavy traffic, high cost of living. It basically makes you fight for very limited resources the city's physical boundaries can provide. Also this deprives the other part of the country of development and growth. The major real beneficiary of centralised development is builder-plotican Nexus Decentralised development is true development

KZfaq algorithm got all the countrys dying out🤣

The last person alive in Seoul, would he be the sole survivor? Seoul survivor? Soul survivor?

0:49 the ad on the building said English is a tool of success

Similar process plays out everywhere, this is just a more extreme example. Cities have various productive capabiltiies that make them worth having (art, culture, technology) but they are effectively "powered" by people, and are not self sustaining, they "use up" not just surrounding natural resources, but surrounding human resources. Capital cities use up even more, and even suck people and resources away from other cities. In traditional societies (Britain 300 years ago, Japan 400 years ago, China 1000 years ago etc), cities were important, but the vast majority of the population lived rurally. This worked because excess rural population (just like excess rural food production) could move to the cities. The trouble is that now in developed countries, the vast majority of the population lives in cities, meaning they "use up" a huge number of people that need to be replenished, but now that only a small number of people live rurally, they are effectively sucking rural areas dry so that the rural areas are no longer self sustaining either (everyone knows about the general trend of young people moving to cities and leaving rural communities empty, whether it be Italy or Japan or South Korea) The West "solves" this by turning the "suck in people from rural areas to cities" to "suck in people from developing countries to developed countries vi massive immigration", however this solution creates its own problems (cultural balkanization and national identity destruction and the fact that it's basically a ponzi, since developing countries eventually become developed countries and you run out of people to import). However for Korea and Japan, while they avoid the loss of identity and homeland for the native population by not importing large numbers of immigrants, that means their demographic issues will hit them much harder. However, in the long run, Korea will still be Korea, even with a smaller population, which will eventually stabilize at lower densities as the culture changes and only the pro natal people are left. Meanwhile Britain will no longer be Britain, France will no longer be France, the populations that created them will be replaced by people with no real historical connection to them, and their unique cultures and histories will disappear.

SM is literally the epitome of capitalism

What has happened to South Korea and Seoul is sometimes called the agglomeration effect.

Every east asian country has low birth rate, south korea is nothing special from japan to hong Kong to taiwan to Singapore has birth rate near 1 or below. In fact China is already suffering from demographic problems and its not even fully developed yet.

This problem is everywhere around the world right now.

Confused. In umm..mid 80s Americans were adopting S. KOREAN babies...

Living in South Korea for almost a decade, I learned that South Koreans should also drop their military-oriented culture in their office environment. Frankly, South Korea is too fascist. Maybe that's why Japan looks rather normal.

Birth rate of Pandas 1,6 and count as endangered species. Birth rate of my country is 1,3. Birth rate of south korea 0,73. Oh boy!!! 😬

I’m so happy 😁 I’m going for the best of the year to see what the new update will bring for me to watch this week 😅so far I’m still a fan and am looking 👀

In many countries, most capital city are usually less known and most boring, they are not mega cities, which is the case in South Korea.