Prime Highlights
- North Korea showcased a huge 10,000-apartment complex in Pyongyang’s Hwasong district, promising to show off ambitious urban planning.
- However, despite sleek designs, the project is concerned with poor construction and regular power cuts.
Key Facts
- The housing complex is included in a master plan to construct 50,000 apartments in Pyongyang by 2026.
- Experts estimate that as low as 70% to 80% of North Korean families already live in decent housing.
Key Background:
North Korea recently said it would start a huge housing construction project in the capital city’s Hwasong district. The newly completed residential complex includes 10,000 new-type apartments, some of which have skybridges and others with integrated education and commercial facilities. The building is part of a greater five-year plan announced in 2021 by North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un to complete the objective of constructing 50,000 new apartments in Pyongyang by the year 2026. The construction is a political and architectural landmark for the regime since Kim Jong Un is directly engaged in the planning and implementation of the project, sources believe.
The gleam of the Hwasong area is a reflection of the regime’s pretension to show that it has progressed, flourished, and advanced urban standards of living. However, behind the gleam is breathtaking issues. Power failure is common in North Korea, which affects basic facilities such as lifts. This has generated an informal housing system in which elderly residents take lower floors, while younger residents take higher floors due to the physical labor required for climbing stairs. In addition, past collapses—most recently the 2014 collapse that reduced an apartment building to rubble—have sown deep fears regarding construction quality and regulation.
Beyond Pyongyang’s inner city, housing across the nation remains densely populated. The majority of dwellings in rural and provincial areas do not have acute shortages of sewers, electricity, and running water. According to South Korean civil engineering studies, only 70% to 80% of North Korean homes have proper housing. While the regime emphasizes grand-scale projects, the majority of observers believe that these efforts target image-making on the political level and not the long-term problem of infrastructure and the standard of living of the majority of citizens.
The Hwasong project, though symbolically significant, is utilized to emphasize the gap between state ideology and the actuality of the everyday life of the majority of North Koreans.
