Running Totals

In the United Kingdom there are 245 people per sq. km. (source). Oddly enough, this is exactly half the density here in South Korea, my temporary home. Korea is quite comparable to the UK in many ways: the population is 80% of the UK's, and the PPP GDP per head is quite similar at $19,600 versus $25,500 for the UK.

So what's is like to live in a country that's as densely populated as the UK would be if there were 60 million extra people?

Well, for starters there is still a lot of empty space. Really, an awful lot: much of Korea is mountainous and a great deal of the rest is open countryside. But Seoul is another thing entirely. The population is 22 million -- the world's third largest city and the most densely populated large city. There's a real problem with the concentration of population around Seoul.

But what does this mean at the personal level?

As an 18-year old in 1987, Jungwon had to pass the athletics exam in order to graduate from school, like all Korean students. Even then there was a shortage of land, and so the government mandated a minimum amount of space for schools, so that a decent playground was available. Jungwon grew up in the dense centre of the city, though, and so the school was close to the minimum permitted size. The sprint test was run over 100 metres, and it was hard to find anywhere to run that far in a straight line. The only way the students could do it was to run right from one corner of the playground, and keep running right until they crashed into the opposite corner. To help prevent injuries, three large matresses were attached at the far corner so that the students could bounce harmlessly off them at the end of their run!

Since 1987, the shortage of land has become far more acute and due, I think, more because of an absolute exhaustion of space rather than the soaring land prices, the government has had to relax the law on school sizes. So what of the 100 metre sprint? Jungwon found out recently while asking about a friend's daughter:

"Oh, they've changed it to a 50 metre sprint," came the reply.