Politics of urban cultural preservation and regeneration: the case of South Korea and Taiwan

ABSTRACT This paper compares the cases of Seoul, Taipei and Keelung to illustrate the dynamics of the local state in leading the process of cultural preservation. We argue that political ambitions of local leaders, driven by economic and political incentives to boost local development, create policy networks centered around local bureaucracies. Various actors, such as local political elites, local bureaucracies, civic groups and developers, are involved in the process of political and economic entangling. The cultural preservation projects are thus the reflection of the political interpretation of memory, as well as the realization of local state power to implement innovative goals of urban rebranding and regeneration. The Korean and Taiwanese cases demonstrate that political functions, such as regime legitimacy and the formation of new identities, have been instrumental in the process of urban regeneration. This paper brings the “politics” back into local developmentalism in the democratic societies of South Korea and Taiwan. This paper also argues that central-local relationship matters as well. The local developmental states are not totally isolated from political entanglements at the central level. Policy supports from the central level are mainly out of political concerns to legitimize ongoing efforts of historical reconstruction and re-interpretation.