A plan Seoul had already written, and Busan had not

As downtown functions declined, the notes write, Busan city undertook a master plan for inner-city regeneration linking Civic Park to the North Port, in the nature of an inner-city management plan. From March 2018, for about a month, it covered 4.6 km² of the Seomyeon inner-city area: Dong-gu, parts of Nam-gu, and a commercial district in Busanjin-gu. Seoul, they say, had from the 2000s onward drawn up inner-city management and development plans several times, and had pushed an active policy. Busan, aside from the statutory urban basic plan, had not managed to draw up a comprehensive policy for its sub-centres.

The commission was carried out by senior research fellow Kim Gyeong-su, a principal researcher at Busan Development studies, as the notes name that body. The master plan’s target year is 2030. Its vision, as they quote it, is a remaking of the centre in order to leap to a global CBD. Sixteen projects were drawn in three types — forming an inner-city frame, building a blue-green network, and making a business environment — and were to be put into effect.

Sixteen projects, and a bill kept as the plan set it

Forming the inner-city frame, they write, has seven detailed works: improving traffic-demand management and public transport in the centre; running a south-eastern metropolitan express railway (the notes’ typo 운형 read as 운행, “to run”) and introducing a tram on the Uam line; improving the road system at Dongcheon three-way, securing public open space around the Dongcheon and making building guidelines, and building a multi-level pedestrian way on Chungjang-daero. The business environment has four: a Busan Sangsangmadang with KT&G; a project the notes write as Raechugo Flushing; a Busan youth park; and Gwangmu Business Park and a museum of history and startups. The blue-green network has five: night scenery around the Dongcheon; a green axis from Hwangnyeongsan to Sujeongsan, and a city cruise; an inner-city walking path that joins a multi-level pedestrian network to what they call inner-city story-ware; and turning the former U.S. 55th supply depot into a park, as well as mixed development.

What matters most, they write, is completing hub works such as the Munhyeon financial centre and Civic Park, and, through the North Port development already under way (reading 북향 as 북항), preparing a comprehensive inner-city management policy without delay. Available land in the centre is short, so former railway and military sites should be used actively, with the stress on improving the environment and reviving commerce through traffic-demand management. The total cost is put at about ₩1.3 trillion. The period is set as 2020 short-term, 2025 medium-term, and 2030 long-term — stages and sums kept as the plan then recorded them, not as a later official total. A Busan city official, they add, asked for citizens’ active interest, saying administrative steps would be pushed by designating a responsible office for each unit of the Civic Park–North Port plan.

A second stretch: under Centum City

The same notes also describe a scheme to develop the underground around Centum City, in Haeundae-gu, as a vast underground city: unused downtown underground turned into a mixed, multi-level space with cultural, commercial, and MICE functions. Demand for industry, commerce, and culture is high there, they write, but land is expensive and spare lots are few, so an integrated underground development was sought. Busan city would work under the main roads around BEXCO — Centum Nam-daero, APEC-ro (reading a broken “APECfh” in the notes), Suyeong Riverside-daero, and Centum 3-ro — with a themed mixed street mall, underground pedestrian links to nearby buildings, a plaza, and naturally lit rest space, so that the space under downtown roads might be brought back as a comfortable interior. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. The notes, a student reading of Busan city’s Civic Park–North Port inner-city master plan, and a stretch on Centum City underground.

Last updated: 15 November 2026