Summary The quality of the built environment of the General Residential Zone is yet to be discussed in depth despite being the area where everyday lives of residents are most affected by. This in part is due to the housing shortages during the process of rapid urbanization in Korea by which building regulations were successively eased to accommodate for speedy urbanization, which in turn meant that regulations were alleviated even in areas with inadequate infrastructure. This caused the deterioration of living standards in single housing areas quickly turning it into dense multi-family housing areas of today. This study focuses on the General Residential Zone as it is the most common form of residential area in Korea, and identifies the problems and limitations of the current planning and building regulations to propose a general direction and improvement regarding these regulations.

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