President Lee Jae-myung (left) and former Governor of South Gyeongsang Province Kim Kyung-soo, newly appointed chair of the Presidential Committee for Decentralization and Balanced Development, shake hands and pose for a commemorative photo.

July 1 marks the 30th anniversary of Korea’s direct elections for provincial governors, city mayors, and county governors, ushering in the era of local autonomy. Over the past three decades, local governance has played a meaningful role in raising civic awareness, expanding regional self-governance, and advancing democratic politics. However, a pressing problem remains: the very regions where autonomy is practiced are now facing the threat of extinction. As young people continue to migrate en masse to the Seoul metropolitan area, the population in this region, which covers only 12.1 percent of the national territory, overtook that of the rest of the country in 2019. Korea's concentration of population and resources in its capital region is by far the highest among OECD member countries.

The divide between the capital and non-capital regions has become one of Korea’s deepest structural contradictions, arguably more severe than the division of the Korean Peninsula. Challenges surrounding housing, employment, and other core social issues are all rooted in this imbalance. Rural areas are facing extinction, and former manufacturing hubs are turning into “rust belts.” There were no at-risk regions in 2000, but by 2024, 130 areas have been designated as facing extinction. In this sense, the past 30 years of local autonomy could also be described as 30 years of local extinction.

The primary blame lies with the central government’s policies that have favored the capital region. Since the Roh Moo-hyun administration, successive governments have eased restrictions on factory construction in the Seoul area, encouraging large corporations to concentrate even further in the Seoul metropolitan area. The division of labor between R&D centers in Seoul and manufacturing plants in other regions, a policy that maintained regional balance, has all but collapsed since the 2010s, amid the hype around the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Young people flock to the capital in search of quality jobs, only to face housing shortages and employment instability, which in turn delays marriage and childbirth. Even the much-touted innovation city initiative, a flagship project for balanced development, has been criticized as a “mere token distribution among regions” with little tangible impact.

The Lee Jae-myung administration must learn from the missteps of previous governments and implement effective policies to halt the trend of regional extinction. During his campaign, President Lee pledged to establish five interregional special local governments across the Seoul metropolitan area, the Southeastern region, the Daegu-North Gyeongsang Province region, the Central region, and the Southwestern region. He also promised to revise special laws to strengthen the autonomy and competitiveness of existing three Special Self-Governing Provinces, including Jeju Island, Gangwon Province, and North Jeolla Province.

Yet the key to saving the regions lies in creating good jobs that offer young people a reason to stay, and dream, where they are. In that sense, President Lee’s pledge to relocate the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the headquarters of shipping company HMM to Busan, with the goal of turning it into a maritime hub leading Arctic route development, appears promising. So does his vision of positioning the Southwestern region as a national center for renewable energy. The Presidential Committee for Decentralization and Balanced Development, chaired by former Governor of South Gyeongsang Province Kim Kyung-soo, who previously led the push for a megacity of Busan, Ulsanm and South Gyeongsang Province, must become a truly empowered and functional organization. The Lee administration must push forward its balanced development agenda with the awareness that these five years may be the last chance to prevent regional extinction.