The Two Koreas; Can Roh close the gap between capital and countryside?(Roh Moo Myun)

Byline: B. J. Lee

As South Korea's first bullet train sped away from Seoul on a test run last week, the smog and crowds quickly gave way to open fields, rice paddies and the deserted streets of small farm towns. Moving at 300 kilometers an hour, the Korea Train Express (KTX) feels like a time machine hurtling into Korea's impoverished past, proof of the fact that South Korea, one of the world's most densely populated countries, is also one of the most imbalanced. No major capital holds a greater share of its nation's people and industry than Seoul--home to a quarter of the South Korean population--and the main purpose of the KTX is to drain some of that congestion into the countryside. "The new High-Speed Railway will contribute to balanced regional development," declared Kim Se Ho, head of the Korean National Railroad. "It will also play a major role in opening the age of regionalization in Korea."

The architect of this new age is President Roh Moo Hyun, who comes from the southeast and is by no means a member of the old Seoul elite. He won the 2002 presidential vote by promising, among other things, to move the administrative capital from Seoul to the center of the country. Later this year he will name the location of the new $40 billion capital, which will be built, starting in 2007, on the new train line. The new capital is generally opposed in Seoul, where people fear a fall in real-estate prices and an exodus of jobs, and supported in the south. Greater Seoul now accounts for 12 percent of South Korean territory, but nearly half the country's economic output. "People in the provinces have no hopes, while people in Seoul suffer from high costs, congestion and other problems," says Kim Young Jip, spokesman for the Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development.

The problem with the train as a political vehicle is that it runs two ways. Built over 12 years at a cost of $12 billion and modeled on the TGV of France, the KTX will open for regular traffic in April, and Seoul-Busan travel time will be cut by half, to 2.5 hours. The grand plan includes branch lines that will cut the maximum travel time between any two stops in South Korea to just three hours and, in theory, unite the often fractious provinces as never before. What remains unclear is whether the government can ensure that the train will carry development away from the capital, not to it.

No one disputes that South Korea is uncomfortably concentrated. In four decades of breathless postwar development, previous regimes favored the capital and largely ignored the provinces. Regional universities now face bankruptcy as students flee to Seoul, where more jobs are available. Firms looking for talent thus also have reason to settle in the capital, leaving only farming jobs in the countryside. Traffic congestion costs South Korea an estimated $20 billion a year in lost working hours, or 3.7 percent of GDP. Military brass worry that in the event of conflict with North Korea, some 22 million citizens are within easy range of artillery ranged across the DMZ.

With fewer people and a lot less money, the provinces are deteriorating rapidly; rural areas are filled with deserted houses. The rural population is aging fast as younger people swarm to Seoul. Theaters, shopping malls and hospitals are hard to find. While Seoul apartments are now as expensive as those in Tokyo or New York, property prices in the provinces have remained unchanged for a decade. In effect, ...