Broadcast date: Friday, September 27, 2024 at 10 PM / Episode 1381 With the implementation of the Special Act on the Improvement of Vacant Houses and Small-Scale Housing in 2018, the government revealed its will to improve vacant houses. Has the number of vacant houses actually decreased in the six years since then? According to the housing census by Statistics Korea, there are approximately 1.53 million 'vacant houses' as of 2023. The number of vacant houses, which was approximately 730,000 in 2010, has nearly doubled in 13 years. Despite the implementation of the Special Act and the establishment of countermeasures, the number of vacant houses is not decreasing. Amid the gloomy outlook that the number of vacant houses will increase further in the future, special measures are urgently needed to resolve the problem of vacant houses. 《Tracking 60 Minutes》 traveled around the country to examine the causes of the increase in vacant houses and the side effects and problems that arise as a result. ■ Empty cities, report on the status of empty houses in the metropolitan area Many empty houses in urban areas of the metropolitan area, such as Seoul, Incheon, and Uijeongbu, were created when redevelopment fever once swept through but the projects themselves fell through. In these cases, even if the redevelopment fails and the number of empty houses increases due to aging, it is not easy to demolish the empty houses on the grounds that they are private property. Ultimately, these abandoned empty houses become a social problem. Aging empty houses promote slumification in the neighborhood, and as a result, the local community and community begin to collapse. The production team met with residents living in neighborhoods that are being devastated by empty houses, listened to their voices, and looked into the cause. When a development zone is designated, no housing improvement projects are carried out within that area. When that happens, the house becomes more difficult to live in, and tenants stop coming. Eventually, the houses become empty, and there are many cases where development plans fall through. In these cases, the local community is destroyed. The paradox is that decently livable houses do not make cities livable, but rather devastate them. Choi Eun-young / Director of the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements ■ The shadow of hyper-aging, the reality of empty houses in Busan Busan Metropolitan City has the most empty houses among all metropolitan governments in the country. According to the 2023 Statistics Korea housing survey, there are 114,000 empty houses in Busan. The primary causes of empty houses are aging and low birth rates. In addition, it is analyzed that lack of jobs and poor living conditions are also having an impact. In the aging apartments of Yeongdo-gu, Busan, elderly residents were living with mold, and a village that was once bustling with young shipyard employees was now home to only elderly people. Many of the subcontractors for Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction lived here. Now that Hanjin Heavy Industries is gone and there is no place to make money, all the young people have left, so there are no young people left. Lee Ok-ja / Haedoe Village President Bongsan Village in Yeongdo-gu, Busan, promoted an empty house regeneration project as an alternative to prevent the increase in empty houses. However, there were many unlicensed buildings, so the profit-making business was limited, and since there was no profit, the residents who moved into empty houses through the empty house regeneration project had no choice but to leave. Despite the efforts of local governments and residents to solve the empty house problem, the increase in empty houses could not be stopped. The production team heard the voice of a professor who actually participated in the urban regeneration project about the reason for this. They said that it would be good to do urban regeneration projects and organize empty houses, make the space green, create gardens, and build exercise facilities, but the residents said that they were old enough to find it difficult to manage and use even those. - Shin Byeong-yoon / Professor of Architecture, Dong-eui University ■ Local government efforts and limitations to solve the empty house problem Each local government that the production team looked into was making various policy efforts to solve the empty house problem. Incheon Metropolitan City Jung-gu demolished empty houses that agreed to use them for public purposes for three years after redevelopment, and then built parking lots and shelters for residents. However, due to the burden of property taxes on the land when demolishing empty houses, the participation of empty house owners was low, and the reality was difficult. The civil servant in charge of the actual work told the production crew that a bigger incentive was needed to solve the empty house problem. They said that if empty houses were used for public purp