We "Decide," You "Expedite": Imperial Directives for Housing Development in South Korea, 1954-1959

Amid Cold War conflicts, US aid to South Korea emerged as an instrument of containment, driven by ideological, militaristic, and economic imperatives. This article examines the family housing development for US civilian workers under the Office of Economic Coordinator, focusing on the Arirang Housing Development and Han River Hills Housing built after the war. It shows these projects to exemplify US imperial power through land expropriation, resource monopolisation, displacement of local communities, and legal and financial impositions. It explores the interplay between US control and local agencies, with particular attention to how their implementation, guided by the Mutual Security Act, required "joint financing and collaboration in execution." Situating these housing projects within broader US foreign aid policy, it argues that the construction of US civilian housing reinforced imperial hierarchies, embedding inequalities in housing aid, and illuminating the paradoxes and complexity of sovereignty and foreign aid in postcolonial Korea.