CNN: North Korea unveils new 10,000-home showpiece residential district

As North Korea slowly emerges from five years of self-imposed pandemic isolation, a glittering new high-rise neighborhood in the capital Pyongyang is taking center stage, CNN reports.

Photos of the 10,000-apartment development, released by state news agency KCNA after the country’s leader Kim Jong Un inspected the site Saturday, show residential skyscrapers spilling out from a wide boulevard in the new district, Hwasong.

The project is part of a major construction drive in the capital, and across much of the nation, intended to improve living standards.

The homes are part of an ambitious five-year plan, announced in 2021, to build 50,000 additional apartments in Pyongyang.

The new neighborhood features numerous tall towers — two of which are connected by a soaring skybridge — as well as “educational, commercial and service facilities,” according to state media. KCNA claimed that Kim was closely involved in the design and “energetically led the work of drawing up the construction plan.”

The opening will complete the third stage of construction at Hwasong, an area described by state media as a “beautiful and modern urban quarter” that signifies “a new era of prosperity” for Pyongyang.

North Korea is also expanding housing beyond Pyongyang, building thousands of homes in mining towns and rural areas.

State media has previously boasted about the pace of construction in the capital, dubbing it “Pyongyang Speed.” Officials claim to have completed the frame of a 70-story skyscraper at the capital’s Ryomyong New Town in just 74 days.

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