South Korea and housing: when the future is also built

Every two years, at FemCAT we organize a trip to benchmarking An international trip with a very specific objective: to learn best practices. We don't travel to copy models, but to understand how other countries face the major challenges of our time and to extract useful lessons for Catalonia. This November 2025, we traveled to South Korea, and one of the most powerful reflections of the trip concerns one of our main bottlenecks: housing. South Korea is a country of nearly 100,000 km² with 50 million inhabitants. Catalonia, with 32,000 km², has just over 8 million. This puts the Korean population density at around 500 inhabitants per km², double that of Catalonia. This comparison is especially relevant considering that both territories share a similar geography, with a significant portion of the land consisting of hills and mountainous areas unsuitable for construction. The difference, therefore, is not so much physical as it is one of political and strategic decision-making.

Korea is a country that lives with a constant eye on the future. The 1953 armistice did not definitively end the war, and this latent tension has permeated its way of doing things. From this arises the culture of "pali-pali," doing things quickly and well. This mentality is also applied to urban planning and housing, with agile planning and execution and a long-term vision.

The country has implemented a determined policy of generating buildable land throughout its territory, with standard building height permits of 20 to 25 stories, even outside major metropolitan areas. This allows for the creation of compact urban centers, made up of clusters of 20 or 30 buildings, well-connected and with good public transportation infrastructure. Height is not an exception, but a tool serving territorial balance and access to housing.

Another key element is the quality of construction. In Korea, we have seen residential buildings with intelligent designs, often in a cross shape, with a high central core and a single apartment on each branch. This model ensures that all rooms have natural light and ventilation. High-rise housing is not synonymous with precariousness, but with quality, efficiency, and residential dignity.

This residential model is closely linked to its economic model. Korea has made a firm commitment to industry, which today represents nearly 38% of its GDP. In Catalonia, industry barely reaches 18% at best. If we truly want to move towards an industrial Catalonia, one that provides long-term prosperity with skilled employment and higher wages, we must understand that this requires solving the housing challenge across the entire region. Most industries, industrial parks, production centers, and hubs Technological centers are not located in the heart of major cities, but rather spread throughout the country. Without affordable, quality housing near these production hubs, the industrial model is unsustainable. This inevitably demands good infrastructure and excellent rail, road, and digital connectivity: it is the necessary condition for territorially distributed housing to function. In South Korea, housing, industry, and mobility are part of the same national project. They are not disconnected policies, but rather components of a single strategy. The demographic context also plays a role; South Korea has very low immigration, which reduces the risk of urban segregation. In Catalonia, this reality is quite different and requires more complex policies, but this cannot be an excuse for inaction. Precisely for this reason, territorial planning, construction quality, and good connectivity between territories are even more crucial. What lesson can we learn? That housing cannot be solved with stopgap measures or isolated actions. We must consider activating building land throughout the country to avoid the overvaluation of developable land as a scarce commodity that everyone wants to profit from. And why not allow building heights where infrastructure makes them viable, invest decisively in mobility, and commit to high-quality construction? Without affordable and available housing, there is no social cohesion or sustainable economic growth.

South Korea reminds us that the countries that progress are those that share a vision, plan for the long term, and act decisively. This also applies to housing. The future won't wait, and housing is one of the structural decisions that will shape Catalonia in the coming decades.