Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tomato]

I just got back from visiting Hongseong for the first time in several years.
They rebuilt the train station to the point that I wouldn't even recognize it.
Furthermore, they did some plain and fancy landscaping.
The last time I was there, the train station was surrounded by commercial property.
Now it is surrounded by rice fields.
In these days of overpopulation, I never imagined that an area could be ruralized--
especially an area in one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
So I'm asking two questions:

HOW?

In the United States, when property gets razed for a new highway, the property owner has to settle for he can get.
The court invariably rules in favor of the government.
That's probably true here, too.

Then again, the stores and restaurants which were there before didn't seem very prosperous.
So they probably got a better deal this way.

Or do you suppose that the area around the train station became a ghost town, leaving the rice farmers free to take over?
If the merchants and employees left on their own accord, where do you suppose they went?
Did they go to Seoul and Pusan and add to the urban sprawl there?

WHY?

Perhaps the town of Hongseong is pitching to escapees from the rat race.
Are visitors to small towns more impressed with rice fields than with stores and restaurants?
If so, maybe the town programmed it so that rice fields would be the first thing that the visitors see.

Sorry, I've forgotten what Hongseong is famous for.