This book explores how a place becomes a place in the Korean context, with a particular focus on power, knowledge, and strategy. Discussion of government-involved placemaking initiatives, including place-marketing, urban regeneration, new city development, and land reclamation, demonstrate how actors from the public, private, and voluntary sectors contribute to governance structures. The research examines how key actors from national and local governments, civic organisations, ordinary citizens, and businesses communicate and interact with actors in other sectors within the realm of placemaking governance, and will interest scholars of Asian urbanism, architects, urban politics, geography, and town planners.

HaeRan Shin is a Professor in the Department of Geography at Seoul National University. Her research focuses on political geography and migrant studies. She has explored the politics of urban development through cases such as places of memory, culture-led urban regeneration, new towns, smart cities, and risk perception.