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Research Article

Urban Culture and Identity in an Era of Globalization: The Comparison with Cultural Strategies of Shanghai and Seoul as Global City

Seok Joon Hong

Sogang Institute for East Asian Studies, Sogang University

Published: February 2007 · Vol. 26 No. 1 · pp. 135-173

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33334/sieas.2007..52.135

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Abstract

Most arguments on the urban space and the urban sociocultural system emphasize a somewhat deep relationship between the two. But the real forms and the dynamics of that relationship are not fully explained in each case, and the comparison with the contents and forms of urban dynamics among the cities are not yet tried to explain. However, it is a fact that the critical studies of urban dynamics among modern cities, such as New York, London and Paris, are more or less established to explain. Those have contributed greatly to the project to rethink modernity. If it is agreed that a definitive component of globalization is the global city, a similar focus on the city should serve the study of globalization equally well. Some scholars have begun to set out the criteria of what qualifies global cities as such. Shanghai and Seoul City would seem to meet these requirements, combining as it does the strong presence of international enterprise with a multicultural landscape, a high concentration of artistic and scientific elite, and a large volume of international tourism. My concern in this paper is to explore what dynamics of globalization are illuminated by a consideration of the urban transformations that have distinguished Shanghai and Seoul City as global cities. This paper is to examine the cultural characteristics and meanings of cultural strategies and changing urban identity in East Asian cities, especially in Shanghai, China and Seoul, Korea, in the age of globlaization. In this paper, I try to explain the comparison with the contents and forms of urban dynamics with special reference to cultural strategies for development in Shanghai and Seoul as global cities.
Keywords: Globalizationurban cultureurban identityShanghai citySeoul citycultural strategyglobal city