[In-Depth Look] The Beginning of the Local Era, How Should We Proceed?

Are you familiar with the ‘Special Act on Support for Population Declining Areas’? It was enacted on June 10 and is scheduled to be implemented from January 1 next year. However, there are no enforcement ordinances or rules yet. The most important reason for enacting this law is the emergence of the regional extinction crisis theory. If the current trend of low birthrates and low fertility continues, it is projected that by around 2060, the resident population on the Korean Peninsula will decrease by about 20 million from now to approximately 33 million. The result would be the disappearance of the regions where we currently live. The regional extinction crisis theory, which originated in Japan, could become a reality in Korea. Regions where the number of newborns sharply declines and only elderly people remain will eventually disappear. This phenomenon is already observable in many non-metropolitan areas.

As of 2020, the total fertility rate in Seoul was only 0.6. Non-metropolitan areas still maintain a total fertility rate of about 1.0. However, the number of children born in Seoul that year exceeded 47,000. Even when combining the number of children born in Jeonnam, Jeonbuk, Chungbuk, Gyeongbuk, and Gangwon, the total was just over 44,000. Ultimately, no matter how high the fertility rate is, if the population living in the area is small, it is difficult to escape the extinction crisis. The best solution is for people to move into and live in the regions at risk of extinction. Consequently, local governments are competing to ‘attract youth.’ However, young people do not easily relocate. The motivations for choosing where to live are as diverse as the reasons for having children.

Focusing on youth as a response to regional extinction is no more meaningful than replacing women with youth in the childbirth promotion policies that pressured women to “have children.” People age every year. Youth are also people who age. When they hope for a pleasant and comfortable living environment even as they become middle-aged and elderly, young people’s footsteps will start to move. Creating jobs alone is not enough, nor is recruiting rural students who only attend school. We must begin building an integrated living environment where anyone wants to live. How? By doing the opposite of the development (?) trend centered on the metropolitan area that Korean society has followed so far.

It is necessary to abandon short-sighted projects focused on specific age groups. Let’s attempt to build a people-friendly living environment where anyone wants to come and live. Korea’s living environment, which has become oversized centered on the metropolitan area, is hostile to people. It forces endless competition and exhausts people. As shown well in the movie ‘Little Forest,’ it is a life where one cannot even properly eat food and just stuffs it into their mouth. The desire for real estate prices labels facilities for the disabled, elderly, and others who we could eventually become as ‘nuisance facilities’ and refuses to allow them into one’s neighborhood.

It is time for a reversal of thinking and a paradigm shift to create a local era led by local governments, not national (central government) regional balanced development. Let’s try responding to the regional extinction crisis this way.

Set a so-called ‘Seulsegwon’ (walking distance zone) centered regional baseline within basic local governments. Let the local residents gather to create a people-friendly regional baseline with pedestrian-only roads and walking trails, an environment that cherishes and educates even a single child, and a village doctor who can be met anytime if desired. What about jobs? Let’s properly build social service facilities that metropolitan residents rejected because of falling housing prices, create jobs, and attract parents who wish their children would die a day before them to move here first. Let’s show the resilience of local people who can laugh at prejudice and discrimination against socially vulnerable groups. When people gather like this, convenience stores, cafes, and movie theaters will also appear. The local era created through people-friendly and socially solidaristic responses will be a good prescription for responding to the regional extinction crisis.

Jaehoon Jeong, Professor, Department of Social Welfare, Seoul Women’s University