Ulsan, South Korea: A Global and Nested ‘Great’ Industrial City

Ulsan, South Korea is home to the world’s largest auto production complex and shipyard, and its second biggest petrochemicals combine. Drawing upon Jacobs’ Contextualized Model of Urban-Regional Development, this article shows how Ulsan’s growth path towards becoming one of the world’s Great Industrial Cities was decisively shaped by both global and nested factors. While the weights of the various tiers from the global to local have fluctuated over time, no one level has had primacy. Through Ulsan this study seeks to introduce the concept of Great Industrial City and in the process: 1) remind scholars and practitioners about the continued importance of industrial cities for national economies and in global capitalism; 2) demonstrate how the world’s city-regions have been decisively shaped by both international forces and embedded/nested factors; 3) enhance the English language reader’s knowledge of South Korean urban areas; and 4) encourage scholars to more seriously consider the manufacturing sector when classifying world cities and delineating the global urban hierarchy, and thereby, expand the global-nested city debate beyond merely the analyzing of large financial centers.