• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.312-334
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• 2010

This paper examines the process of Gyeongbu Highway construction from the standpoint of political economy, which was pursued by President Park Jeong-Hee in the 1960s, focusing on the politics of mobility and demarcation implied in it. As results of examination, it can be argued that Gyeongbu Highway was seen as a powerful element to promote a socio-spatial integration of population and hence to enforce an authoritative political power of the Park regime through creation of mobility; that it has had an strong impact on changing the physical landscape of national space and the spatio-temporal rhythm of everyday life by extending the 'machine space' as a non-place; that it has provided a physical infrastructure on which the period of capital circulation could be reduced through its effect of space-time compression. But Gyeongbu Highway has led serious problems such as uneven regional development, expansion of non-place or alienated place, ecological destruction and pollution. In conclusion, a sustainable politics is suggested to overcome this kind of 'tragedy of highway' and to develop the highway as a true way of political and spatial balance and integration.