Before Amazon Designs Our Neighborhood Apartment
Prologue to the Series: Rethinking Logistics, Space, and Everyday Life
"It's not the city that's changing, but city life itself—redefined by delivery apps and platforms like Coupang."
Cities are not simply built with bricks and concrete; they are shaped by how people move. And today, the agents designing that movement are no longer architects or urban planners.
This series, titled "Before Amazon Designs Our Neighborhood," began with a simple question. It’s been several years since Coupang launched its overnight delivery service. Now, we no longer need to visit the supermarket—our essentials arrive at the doorstep by 7 AM. But hold on: have we noticed how these conveniences are reshaping the very fabric of our cities?
This question is not about a passing tech trend. It forces us to reconsider how e-commerce platforms and delivery apps have reconfigured our daily rhythms and movement patterns—and, in doing so, have disrupted the demand for infrastructure and the spatial layout of urban life.
14 Million Packages a Day: The New Pulse of the City
7:00 AM — delivery boxes stacked outside apartment entrances.
12:00 PM — fleets of scooters swarm into office lobbies.
11:00 PM — fingers scroll through shopping apps to place orders for the next morning.
Behind these mundane moments lies a powerful statistic: 14 million. That’s the number of parcels moved across South Korea every single day.
This isn’t just about logistics volume. It represents 14 million trips that people no longer take themselves. Movement patterns have changed, and as a result, the city must be redrawn.
The Invisible Architects
Who is driving this transformation?
Coupang never declared its intent to redesign the city. Baemin (the top food delivery platform) has never claimed to be an urban planner. All they promised was speed and convenience.
But look at what happened.
Rocket Delivery reshaped local supermarkets.
Overnight delivery made cold storage lockers a necessity in every residential complex.
Delivery apps caused restaurants to shrink their dining halls and expand their kitchens.
These platforms designed the flow of daily life, and urban spaces responded by adapting to those flows.
Why Are Construction Companies Always Late to Respond?
There used to be a clear sequence to city development:
- Governments plan.
- Construction firms build.
- Shops and residents move in.
Today, that order is reversed:
- Platforms launch services.
- People change how they live.
- Only then do developers revise their blueprints.
When Coupang launched Rocket Delivery, construction companies did nothing. Only after shoppers went online, brick-and-mortar stores suffered, and parcel volumes exploded did developers think, “Maybe we need parcel lockers.”
Builders have become reactive agents in a city being actively reshaped by platforms.
A Quiet Revolution in Numbers
■ Online shopping transactions rose 78% from 2020 to 2023.
■ Food delivery orders tripled post-COVID and continue to grow.
■ Parcels surpassed 14 million per day, totaling over 5 billion per year.
■ Offline retail shrinks: hypermarkets see declining sales and store closures.
These numbers don’t just signal market shifts. They reveal a structural transformation in how urban life is organized.
We now scroll through apps instead of walking to the store. We order food to eat at home instead of dining out. Delivery vehicles and couriers have replaced our footsteps, and the city’s traffic patterns and spatial needs are fundamentally changing.
The World Is Already Moving Ahead
This challenge isn’t unique to Korea. Globally, cities and tech companies are exploring radical new models.
Alibaba’s "New Retail" strategy in China merges online and offline into a unified commerce ecosystem. It's not just fast delivery; it's a redesign of the city’s retail circulatory system.
Toyota is building "Woven City" in Shizuoka, Japan—an experimental smart city integrating autonomous vehicles, robotics, and AI to reimagine human movement.
European cities like Paris and Barcelona are implementing the "15-minute city" model, restructuring neighborhoods so that all essential services are accessible within a short walk. It’s an effort to reduce platform dependency and strengthen local communities.
In this new era, the lead architects of cities are no longer construction firms, but tech platforms.
A Fundamental Question for the Construction Industry
What should Korea’s construction firms be asking in this era of change?
■ Old question: "How big and how much should we build?"
■ New question: "What kinds of life flows should we enable?"
If builders can understand and anticipate the new patterns created by platforms, they can once again become proactive designers, not just responders.
That means evolving into partners who co-design the flow of modern life—not just its static spaces.
Between Convenience and Risk
Of course, the rise of platforms isn’t without complications:
■ Regional inequalities have worsened. There’s a growing gap between areas well-served by platforms and those left behind.
■ Local businesses are disappearing. Independent shops are being replaced by unmanned pickup lockers and ghost kitchens.
■ Urban infrastructure is under strain. Elevators in apartments are constantly overloaded with parcels. Delivery scooters clog traffic and pose safety risks.
■ Most importantly, consumer choice is being narrowed. We live within options offered by platforms, losing the diversity that once defined city life.
What This Series Seeks to Answer
This series explores key questions shaping the future of urban life:
Episode 1 — Logistics Is Swallowing the City
How exactly are overnight delivery and dark stores reshaping urban space?
When did logistics shift from being infrastructure to becoming a space designer?
Episode 2 — The Urban Designer Has Changed
What are the risks when platforms lead and builders follow?
Where is the balance point between tech-driven flow and physical infrastructure?
Episode 3 — What Should Builders Design?
What spaces and functions do platform-era cities truly need?
How can construction firms evolve into designers of everyday flows?
Now Is the Time
We stand at a critical crossroads.
Will we build new urban models on our own terms, before Amazon and Alibaba dictate the blueprint for our cities?
Or will we remain passive, reacting to platform-driven shifts and losing control of urban futures?
Construction must no longer be about just supplying space—it must be about understanding and designing life patterns.
And the time to begin that change is now.
"A city is not just a collection of buildings. It is a living organism shaped by the flows of people and life. Whoever designs those flows designs our tomorrow."
[Series: Rethinking Logistics, Space, and Everyday Life]
Prologue: "Before Amazon Designs Our Neighborhood Apartment"
Episode 1: "Logistics Is Swallowing the City – From 'Routes' to 'Flows'"
Episode 2: "The Urban Designer Has Changed – Construction Meets Platform"
Episode 3: "What Should Builders Design? – The Platform Counterpart"
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This is part of the STREAMLINE: Beyond Logistics Playbook by BEYONDX series.