The promise and pitfalls of public-private partnerships in Korea

Urban problems are becoming too serious to leave solely in the hand of government authorities but have necessitated drawing the wisdom and resources of all pat-ties involved in contemporary urban predicaments. The paper is to review the historical evolution of the public-private partnership concept and to highlight the generic promise and drawbacks of the public-private partnership. The two cases, which have long been practiced in Korea, are introduced to shed some lights on how the public-private partnership works in reality. The first case is the cooperative urban renewal programme which involves three parties: the residents, construction firm, and municipal authority for their own sake of slum-squatter improvement. The second case is the land readjustment programme, which aims at converting raw land to buildable urban land by the participation of landowners and public authority. It is expected to pose a new question for the further refinement of the public-private partnership concept and to give some lessons for cross-cultural comparison.