I’ve always been fascinated by why places change, particularly through the lens of real estate economics. My work, on the other hand, is about figuring out how. For the past 25 years, I’ve watched two districts, hundreds of miles apart, conduct a perfect, real-world experiment observation in development between Dongdaemun in Seoul and Skudai in Johor.

Walking through Dongdaemun on a cold Tuesday night, you feel the electric hum of a 24-hour city. The impossible, sweeping curves of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) glow like a grounded spaceship, reflecting the neon of a thousand wholesale fashion malls. It feels dense, expensive, and permanent.

Fly south to Skudai, just outside Johor Bahru, and the air is thick and warm. The feeling is one of sprawling potential. You see vast new university campuses, wide six-lane highways, and endless rows of new townships. The energy here isn’t from density; it’s from the constant hum of construction and the palpable economic gravity of Singapore, just a few miles across the water.

Between 2000 and 2025, both districts boomed. But their paths, their philosophies, and the lessons they offer couldn’t be more different. One is a story of intensive urban regeneration; the other, of extensive regional expansion.

Dongdaemun, Seoul’s Public-Led Rebirth

Back in 2000, Dongdaemun was not a tourist’s dream. It was a gritty, chaotic, but economically vital heart of Seoul’s garment industry. It was functional, but it was aging. The most prominent feature was an old, concrete baseball stadium. Then, Seoul made a colossal bet.

The city’s development strategy was not passive; it was an active, high-cost, and controversial intervention. First came the Cheonggyecheon Stream restoration in 2005, a project that ripped up an elevated freeway and unearthed a river, fundamentally changing Seoul’s relationship with public space. This set the stage for Dongdaemun’s true catalyst: the decision to demolish the old stadium and, in its place, build the DDP, which opened in 2014.

This wasn’t just a new building; it was a forced rebranding. The city government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a Zaha Hadid-designed landmark to create a new identity. They declared Dongdaemun the new hub of global design and creative industries.

The result? The “DDP Effect” was profound. It stitched together previously separate commercial areas, created a massive public park, and became an instant architectural icon. Property values in the surrounding area, already under pressure from Seoul’s hyper-competitive market, solidified. Dongdaemun transformed from a pure wholesale district into a global cultural destination.

But this polish came at a cost. It was a top-down vision that displaced countless street vendors and erased the layered urban history of the old stadium. It was, in essence, development by brilliant, expensive amputation.

Skudai External Dependency and Growth

Skudai’s story in 2000 was one of a quiet satellite town. It was known primarily for Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and its place along the old highway. Its destiny was entirely, and passively, tied to its larger neighbour, Johor Bahru, and the giant across the causeway. The catalyst here wasn’t a single building; it was a massive, sweeping special economic policy: the launch of Iskandar Malaysia in 2006.

The strategy for Skudai and the surrounding region was not to build a cultural icon but to build an economic engine. The plan was to leverage its single greatest asset: proximity to Singapore. The sales pitch was simple: “Come here for cheaper land, lower operational costs, and access to Singapore’s market.”

This unleashed a wave of development, but one fundamentally different from Dongdaemun’s. It was horizontal, not vertical. It was development by expansion—new townships, new industrial parks, new private schools, and a forest of high-rise residential condos.

For years, this strategy was a mixed bag. The growth was real, but it was speculative. It created a “two-tier” market: strong demand for landed homes from locals, but a notorious, persistent glut of unsold luxury apartments built for foreign investors who never fully materialized. It was a “build it and they will come” strategy that got ahead of its own demand.

However, as we stand here in 2025, that bet is finally paying off. The nearly complete Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link to Singapore and the new Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) have acted as a powerful accelerant. Suddenly, the supply is being met by real demand from commuters and companies creating “twin facilities” on both sides of the border. Skudai’s property market is, after a long wait, heating up precisely because its core premise—proximity—is being turbocharged by infrastructure.

Core Insights: Identity vs Proximity

What we’ve learned from these two divergent paths is a lesson in strategic choice. The first lesson, from Dongdaemun, is that identity is a powerful, if costly, catalyst. Development isn’t just about economics; it’s about identity. By building a world-class, undeniable “place” like the DDP, Seoul created a durable gravity that attracts tourists, talent, and capital. This placemaking is expensive and can be socially disruptive, but its value in establishing a unique, self-sustaining brand is immense and long-lasting.

The second lesson, from Skudai, is that proximity is a volatile fuel. Its journey shows that development based on external factors, like a neighbouring economy, is powerful but precarious. For a decade, its market was vulnerable to Singaporean policy shifts and border controls, making its success entirely contingent. The new RTS link and JS-SEZ are finally locking in that advantage, but it was a long, risky wait, proving that this strategy requires immense patience and a high tolerance for uncertainty.

This leads to the third lesson which is beware the glut created by public vision versus private speculation. Dongdaemun’s transformation was led by a singular, curated public vision that controlled the outcome. Skudai’s, driven by broad policy incentives, became a “gold rush” for private developers. This created a massive, decade-long misalignment of supply and demand—the property overhang—that is only now being corrected. It’s a critical lesson in needing a master plan that paces supply with real, diversified demand, not just a single speculative source.

Ultimately, for any developer or city planner looking to the future, the lesson is this: you face a choice. You can build by leveraging another’s success, as Skudai did, which is often faster and cheaper but leaves you contingent on their fortune. Or, you can build your own success from the ground up, like Dongdaemun—a path that is far more expensive and complex, but one where the resulting identity, and the value it generates, is yours alone.

The best path, of course, lies somewhere in between—using public vision to create a unique identity, while using policy to harness your natural economic advantages.

As we build our cities, we must remember our intentions, for “Verily, Allah does not waste the reward of the good-doers.”

Source: UTM NewsHub