If you actually visit Guryong Village, the slum conditions are shocking.

I started from Irwon Station, climbed up Daemosan Mountain, moved along the ridge to Guryongsan Mountain, and then headed down to Gaepo-dong, which leads you through Guryong Village at the end.
I remember being absolutely shocked the first time I saw Guryong Village.
I wondered if this could truly be a residential area existing in 21st-century Seoul.
Expressions like "Seoul's last remaining hillside slum" are actually so common they've become clichés.
Bongcheon-dong used to be like that, as were Jeongneung, Hongje-dong, Nangok, and others—all villages that represented poor hillside slums—but Guryong Village is on a completely different level from them.
People are actually living in shacks made by haphazardly weaving together wooden planks and plastic sheets amidst the bushes.
In the midst of that, there are small convenience stores and clothing shops scattered around, but they are also just shacks.
And the entire neighborhood is permeated with a musty stench that you cannot experience anywhere else in Seoul.
The emotion I felt during the 10 minutes I passed through Guryong Village was not just pity or discomfort, but a sense of fear first and foremost.
I wondered what kind of people live in a place like this.
There must be families and young children growing up here, yet there is this strange feeling, as if they are separated by an invisible barrier from the brand-new apartment complexes in Gaepo-dong visible just a few hundred meters away... something like that.
I am writing this because seeing the news about the fire in Guryong Village today reminded me of the shock I felt when I first saw it.