Scott Burgeson has a really good read I recommend everyone check out about the demolition of the Pimatgol neighborhood in Seoul:

During the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), Korean society was broadly divided into two main status groups: The yangban or
nobles and the sangmin or commoners, who as far as the yangban were concerned were basically everyone else. Each social
group had their virtues and less attractive characteristics. The yangban were the custodians of the nation’s highest ideals and
spiritual values, based mainly on the Confucian tradition, and were, at least in theory, adept at “shi-so-hwa” or poetry,
calligraphy and painting. They could also be rather stuffy and uptight, and generally looked down on anyone so unfortunate
as to have to actually work with their hands for an honest living. Yes, they were snobs, and some might even say that they
were lazy bastards who lived off the labor of others.

If the yangban often lived with their heads in the clouds, the sangmin lived with their feet in the mud and the dirt. Of course,
they were not nearly as “refined” or “educated” as the yangban, and no doubt their “rough” manners, be it perhaps swearing
too much or wolfing down their rice and kimchi too noisily, only increased the disdain that many yangban felt towards them.
However, from a more generous perspective, we might view them as appealingly unaffected and down-to-earth on the whole.
Certainly such classic expressions of sangmin culture as p’ansori, mask dance or tightrope walking reflect a lively humor and
spontaneity of spirit. And even the yangban must have known that the sangmin were the productive foundation of the entire
society.

In the modern period, and especially in South Korea after 1948, the rigid social-status system of Choson was replaced by a
more flexible and explicitly economic class structure. In place of the yangban, the wealthy and politically powerfully now
occupy the top levels of this society, and unlike the yangban, many must have walked through the mud and dirt themselves
to get to where they are today. Meanwhile, the spirit of the sangmin lives on as best it can, although nowadays their modern
heirs are commonly referred to as “somin,” which is more of an economic designation at the lower end of the social scale.
And just as in the past, the tension between the elites of Korean society and the nation’s somin persists, much like the yin-
yang symbol at the center of the T’aeguk-gi or South Korean national flag. Of course, we know who always manages to
stay on top.

No clearer example of this tense, nearly timeless relationship can be found at the moment than in my neighborhood of
Chongno in downtown Seoul, where I have lived off and on since 1996. More specifically, the continued assault on and
slow death of P’imat-gol, perhaps the most famous symbol of sangmin or somin culture in Chongno, has been the occasion
of much sadness expressed by the Korean public and in the local media of late. As a proud somin of sorts myself, or really
an incorrigible sangnom* at heart, I very much share this sentiment, and would even go so far as to say that P’imat-gol is
being killed off by the ghosts of yangban past, who continue to lord it over the somin of today’s Chongno.  [King Baeksu via Marmot's Hole]

Read the rest because personally I think this is one of the best articles Scott has written.