DPRK Seen Through Its Housing Construction

                                                 

This is an artist’s impression of a residential district being built in the Hwasong area in Pyongyang, the capital city of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Similar impressions can be found in the Komdok area, a leading nonferrous minerals production base, in the Ryonpho area, where construction of a large-scale greenhouse farm is under way, and even in rural villages. 

Through these artists’ impressions, the international community not only sees the houses this country is going to build; it is what the country aspires to through housing construction. 

In recent years the country has built one modern street after another, starting with Changjon Street built in downtown Pyongyang in 2012 to Unha Scientists Street, apartment houses for the educationists at Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology, Wisong Scientists Dwelling District, Mirae Scientists Street, Ryomyong Street, 10 000 flats in the Songsin and Songhwa district and the Pothong riverside terraced houses district.

Construction in Samjiyon in a northern area of 1 300m above sea level, which was conducted in three stages for four years, was finished in 2021. Low- and multi-storyed apartment houses with thousands of flats have been built in this city. When the Yangdok Hot Spring Resort was under construction in the middle part of the country, thousands of houses were built; when a large-scale vegetable greenhouse farm and a tree nursery was under construction in the northeastern part of the country, hundreds of houses were also built for their employees. Last year alone thousands of houses were built in various parts of the country.

Now a hydropower station of national significance is under way, and the state has given priority to the construction of houses. This shows the meticulous care of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the government of the country that try its best not to make people experience any difficulty in their living by giving precedence to housing construction in anticipation of the removal of houses for the project. 

In 2015, 2016, 2020 and 2021 flooding, heavy rain and typhoon hit the country, making many people homeless. Each time the Party and the government designated housing construction as a major thrust area in the rehabilitation projects, and enlisted all the human, material and technical resources of the country, thus building houses more wonderful than those of the past. 

Today housing construction is being conducted on a larger scale. The above artist’s impression envisages construction 10 000 flats, and a district of tens of thousands of flats is planned to be built in this area within three years or so. Construction of a mountain gorge city, a cultured mining city, with a unique character is under construction in the Komdok area; as 5 000 houses are being built every year, 25 000 houses will be built by 2025. And all the regional areas are pushing ahead with housing construction as suited to the local features.

The housing construction is not designed for the pursuit of financial profit; it is aimed at turning the state’s assets and the fruits of the people’s creative labour into benefits for the working masses. This demonstrates the aspiration of the country that regards promotion of the people’s wellbeing as the supreme principle of its activities and does its utmost to provide the people with stabler and more civilized living conditions