In the 1960s, the rapid population growth in Seoul led to the emergence of urban poor as shacks and unauthorized buildings proliferated. The city of Seoul demolished unauthorized buildings in poor residential environments, such as riversides, hillsides, and railroads, and moved the evicted residents to the metropolitan area on the outskirts of Seoul. The 'Gwangju Grand Complex' was planned as a large housing complex in Jungbu-myeon, Gwangju-gun, Gyeonggi-do (now the area around Seongnam, Sujeong-gu, Jungwon-gu) with a size of 10 km2 to accommodate and settle 500,000 evicted residents.

Evicted residents flocked in hopes of having a house and a job, but as the evicted residents began to move while the land preparation work for housing site development was not properly done, they had to wait for the housing site to be built by setting up a tent in the hillside halfway up the hillside.

Around August 1971, a total of 150,000 to 200,000 people, including 100,000 evicted evicted residents, 14,000 former tenants, and 13,000 other movers, lived in a huge tented village in the 'Gwangju Grand Complex'. The tent village had no water supply, sewage, and electricity facilities, and even the land for housing was not properly constructed. It was truly a slum among slums, teeming with poverty and crime.