► Superficially, one would assume that Korea is making excellent progress toward the urban-related Sustinable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11), which seeks to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. 

► However, progress is less clear, if closely examined. Some indicators selected by the Korean government suffer from two common statistical faults: 1) aggregation bias and 2) cherry-picking. 

► In the first case, through aggregation bias, researchers can overlook or ignore the worsening conditions for some Koreans, for instance, Airborne particulate matter (PM). 

► In the second case, the Korean government has chosen only one indicator- the proportion of people under the Minimum Housing Standard, while they could have chosen the precise indicator recommended by the UN. This appears that some official national indicators may have been cherry-picked to depict the country in a more positive light.