The policy of Seoul Industrial and Special Development Promotion Districts (hereafter the Districts) is considered the representative policy for the regional industrial cluster in Seoul. In 2007, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) launched the Districts policy that is made up of a combination of industrial promotion projects and urban planning incentives. This study takes a close look at the six Districts (Jongro Jewelry Districts, Sungsu IT District, Mapo Design-Publishing District, Dongdaemun Oriental Medicine District, Jungnang Fashion-Clothing District, Junggu Printing District) in terms of the policy’s progress and its effectiveness.

Despite the ambitious goal of the SMG, the Districts policy has faced severe obstacles. The originally proposed policy means have not actually been implemented due to poor policy coordination and leadership, limited financing sources, poor design for the city tax exemption plan, public low-interest business loans not being taken advantage of and very few supporting or complimentary programs. Moreover, it is impossible for the urban planning incentives to be effective because of incomplete measures to restitute development gains of business facility owners from the incentives. This study gives three suggestions to the SMG: institutional reorganization in areas such as city ordinance; an integrative implementation system based on a master plan; including industrial promotion support in order to reinvigorate the community of the target industry.