OMG Digital Magazine OMG Issue 280 12th October 2017 | Page 51

OMG Digital Magazine | 280 | Thursday 12, October, 2017 • PAGE 51
A New Look Inside the Cities of North Korea
JOE EATON
As President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un trade personal barbs and threats of annihilation
(and Trump prepares to visit the Korean peninsula in
November), South Koreans are famously greeting the
potential of war with a shrug. The same seems to be the
case across the 38th parallel in North Korea.
In September, NK News, an independent media
organization with staff in Seoul and Washington, D.C., sent
a photographer into the country to see how heightened
tension is impacting daily life in Pyongyang and smaller
cities. While the world wonders if Kim will fulfill a threat to
test a nuclear bomb over the Pacific Ocean and  President
Trump undermines his own Secretary of State’s diplomatic
efforts, life in North Korea appears to be going on
as before—which is to say slowly, amidst crumbling
infrastructure and urban development that barely hints
at the 21st century. The photos, shared exclusively with
CityLab, also reveal fresh anti-American propaganda and
closed gas stations, likely caused by fuel shortages and
tightening international sanctions.
Pyongyang began to introduce bike lanes throughout the
city in 2015, by designating lanes for cyclists on sidewalks
shared with pedestrians. Like so many things in North
Korea, the work of painting the street markings is done by
hand.
Cyclists and pedestrians share a street empty of four-wheel
traffic in Kaesong City in the south of North Korea. Away
from Pyongyang, the number of cyclists increases and the
number of cars declines. The elite ride electric bicycles
imported from China or Japan that cost as much as $600.
Residents of a building outside Kaesong in the southern
part of North Korea hang solar panels outside their
window, to help weather sporadic power outages. North
Korea’s energy infrastructure has been in decline since
the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union limited
supplies of fuel.
Schoolgirls wearing Communist Party Young Pioneer
scarves study on the Pyongyang metro. The subway
system is buried more than 350 feet below the ground and
doubles as a nuclear bunker.
Pyongyang’s famous “traffic ladies”direct traffic using an
orange beacon. Traffic lights were introduced to the city in
2009, but these uniformed young women are still on the
job.  
Three young soldier-laborers stand on the uncompleted
balcony of a new apartment in Pyongyang. Construction
in North Korea is often shoddy, relying on antiquated
building techniques and poorly reinforced concrete.
A playground on the east coast of North Korea includes
slides, swingsets (with missing swings), and a rocket, plus a
cartoon battle mural. Militant narratives and anti-American
propaganda are a strong part of North Korean education.
A pickup truck serves as transportation for soldiers,
workers, and children on their way to Hamhung, North
Korea’s second-largest city. In the absence of official
public transportation options, entrepreneurs are meeting
the demand.