A city as an ambivalent space of hope and anxiety: Focusing on the Pohang Urban Regeneration Project

This study examined the case of 'Jungang-dong' in Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do, which is undergoing simultaneous spatial reorganization among local urban regeneration projects aiming for new goals of sustainable development and social integration. This space is a key economic, social, and cultural hub in the past, and strategic promotion and planning are underway to improve the quality of life of local people, and also to move to a creative and unique new space based on culture and art. However, although this urban regeneration policy puts regional development at the forefront, a flip side of it functions as an urban space where exclusion and alienation are prevalent. Furthermore, it is an ambivalent urban space where suppression and control to occupy space and a certain ideology is concealed. Through this, the relationship between individuals and groups in the urban space where diverse lives coexist, and the complex interests such as the change and overcoming of the subject and group responding to the political flow and the aspect of the local community managed and regulated in a fluid capitalist society. For this, this study conducted an analysis based on David Harvey's concepts of 'capital accumulation' and 'time-space compression'. In particular, textual analysis was conducted based on the status of implementation of Pohang urban policy, statements and contributions by urban regeneration policy officials and experts, resident groups and representatives, and multiple voices of local residents presented in Pohang urban regeneration newspapers.