Urban Farm DB
Research catalogue
Database research record2022·South Korea

Freeway Removal: From Cheonggyecheon to Seoullo 7017

Tony Robinson, Minsun Ji

Sustainable development goals series

Urban Farm DB summary

Between 2003 and 2005, Seoul removed its largest downtown expressway and restored the buried Cheonggyecheon stream, examined here as a case study within Seoul's "green growth" regime. Alongside other interventions — destruction of urban highways, expansion of urban forests, rooftop gardens, urban farming, and bike lanes — the city achieved a decoupling of urban growth from greenhouse gas emissions, continuing to grow while both toxic effluents and greenhouse gas emissions substantially declined.