49 schools in Korea set to close this year

Damn you beat me to posting this LOL

My knee jerk reactions are:

1. better government protections for maternal benefits,

2. baby bonds,

3. converting some schools into cheap housing apartment communities for new families.

Ultimately, my reactions only address finances, and not cultural issues that may also drive this declining birth rate.

Quote from bartkun

4. Do more to make people leave Seoul.

I remember something about this! it seems that hyperdensity within seoul is contributing to people within seoul not wanting to raise a family due to a premium living space expense, among other things, while they stay there due to proximity of opportunity and everything.

I had a weird idea: and its a really long term plan.

basically its been said that the ROK military's hazing and bullying cycle and pipeline is due to conscription and a heavy top-down structure.

so:

1. ROK military should implement a bottom-up review or at least a 360 review (feedback from lower enlisted, or lower, peer, and superior enlisted) system that robustly anonymizes feedback.
2. The ROK military should invest in its voluntary soldiers to grow a bigger professional army to dilute issues caused by conscription

3. This would create an opportunity: If capable and professional women enter into the military and climb the ranks (it would be really hard) it would introduce more and more exposure for men to capable, and professional women, diluting twisted views of women passed between men, in an institution where all men pass through (via conscription).

4. If implemented carefully and with proper protections, this could help erode some of the social issues regarding the perception of women, as well as the treatment of women. (protections like maternal leave, unbiased incident reporting (this means watchdog system!, not just reporting to direct superior!), etc.) so the contracts would need to be able to state, explicitly, the protections that a soldier can expect, as well as the contracts being minimally different to prevent views of unfair favoring of women in the service.

Its a really half baked idea to erode some of the social issues between men and women in korea and I want feedback! PLS

natrually the end goal is to reduce some of the societal issues regarding perception and treatment of women, which has long been an issue generally and obstacle to starting families, specifically, among other things.

edit: for the captain obvious: this plan has an extreme likelihood of failing at every single step, by the way. and I wanted ideas to help reduce that.

Quote from bartkun

They should really diversify things there

for example built factories or some facilities on the east coast

also maybe even build new universities in different cities with unique or new specializations/courses to attract students to go there

I would focus on developing everything below red line + whole east coast, even above that line towards North Korea border

The main point should be to make people think: "Why would you even go to Seoul? You have everything right here"

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I think the more politically palatable solution would be to set up something like california's UC system (university of california) where they set up colleges in some cities, making it a college town. If that works out and the university speccs into something like medical or something, you'd see that startups and spinoffs would come from the college and post up near there, due to proximity to relevant expertise in new workers (college grads), and hopefully that'd bootstrap the "why seoul" thing you were talking about!

Quote from bartkun

They should really diversify things there

for example built factories or some facilities on the east coast

also maybe even build new universities in different cities with unique or new specializations/courses to attract students to go there

I would focus on developing everything below red line + whole east coast, even above that line towards North Korea border

The main point should be to make people think: "Why would you even go to Seoul? You have everything right here"

below.jpg

Display More

that or they pull a ShenZhen and just start moving government offices and military and force them to live there, to attract enterprising people to then fill in the needs like grocery services, restaurants, etc.

Edit: Shen Zhen had that kind of effort due to the development, construction, and operation of Daya Bay NPP.

Quote from bartkun

Well they've created Sejong City with that purpose. You can read or watch some vlogs about it. But apparently they've made some mistakes there with public transportation + there isn't much work there

Update:

I think Sejong city might work. It's got a university branch there, and its already a special administrative zone. Things will be slow going and might hinge wholly or in part on development of "human" infrastructure like schools, parks, attractions, whatnot. The only real difference is that shenzhen had whole families moved from the start, instead of those who work there commute there. That and schools, hospitals, and the things needed for self sufficiency, not to mention that those who were "deployed" to Shenzhen were essentially kept there until administrative relaxation on shenzhen and the later privatization of CGN, the company that now runs Daya Bay NPP. That meant that people had to make do with whatever, and the occasional shenanigans that arise from your school teacher being your downstairs neighbor from within the "base" in shenzhen. For sure, I think Sejong city will continue to exist as long as the ministries that were moved there stays there. Its growth would be extremely hamstrung by the officials falling for "smart city" stuff imho. It doesn't take data driven analytics to tell you that the officials have kids and the kids need a school to go to, and a park or community center to play at, etc.

The jobs there aside from admin work wasn't there from the start, and they might filter in eventually. I think it was a mistake to assume everything will naturally and quickly filter in, including jobs. To make it right, some of it should have been planned for.

superyeah I wanna hear your thoughts! :D (you don't have to :DD)

Quote from bartkun

You can read or watch some vlogs about it. But apparently they've made some mistakes there with public transportation + there isn't much work there

I've seen this one and I was genuinely shocked at the mention of "no metro"

that was amazing to hear, and not in a good way. This means that if they have to do it later it'd be much more expensive!!

I'm glad they invested in cycle infrastructure, but without seeing the buses first, I'm doubtful of the buses, especially if they don't have their dedicated lanes.

Makes me wonder about "pedi-buses". I had doodled out a pedicab that sits four( in elementary school), and there's a driver that pedals using electric assist. passengers can also pedal as well using either pedal generators, or actually putting power to the wheels via bike chain (I've ridden on a "bike" where there's four people and the front two people direct where to go and all four people pedal). its like a pedicab but a bus route using cycling routes.