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A Study on Establishing National Settlements System based on the Revitalization of Small Towns
소도시 활성화를 통한 국토정주체계 구축방안
Yang-Ho Park, Won-Sup Lee, Chang-Hyun Kim, In-Kwon Park, and Ji-Young Lim October 2003․276 pages․Korean
Rapid industrialization and economic development since the 1960s have concentrated in urban areas, resulting in population movement from rural areas including small towns to urban areas. Outmigration of population from small towns toward urban areas has caused negative effects both in urban areas and small towns. While urban areas are experiencing problems in overconcentration, small towns are suffering from the loss of productive labor and the lack of social and economic vitality. A sound and healthy national settlements system has to be built on the revitalization of small towns that function as the center of rural communities. In this study small towns are those with population less than 50,000. As of November 2001, there are 194 small towns designated by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, covering 13,496 square kilometers and accommodating 3.4 million people.
The purposes of the research are: ① to analyze changes in the national settlements system and propose directions of restructuring of the system; ② to examine overseas policies to promote small towns and draw implications for Korea; ③ to propose policy alternatives on the strategies of small town development based on the characteristics and main functions; ④ to develop a revitalization program composed of funding, role division among actors and institutional rearrangement; and ⑤ to present policy measures to reestablish the position of small towns facing the restructuring of the national administrative hierarchical system.
Position of small towns on the national settlements system is relatively weak compared to rapidly growing urban areas. The population share of urbanized regions including cities and small towns has increased from 35.8 percents in 1960 to 84.5
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percents in 2000. The population share of small towns has decreased from 9.0 percents in 1960 to 8.1 percents in 2000. During the last decade, there was an increase of about 2.7 millions of national population. Urban areas have gained about 4.4 millions and only 150 thousand people have been added to small towns. Rural areas have lost 1.9 million people to urbanized regions. Socio-economic indicators explain both the outcomes and causes of staggering small towns. Age structure of population in small towns is becoming similar to rural areas rather than urban areas. The age index of small towns, which represents the ratio of population older than 65 to the ratio of population younger than 15, has increased from 11.6 percents in 1980 to 42.8 percents in 2000, while that of urban areas has increased from 7.9 percents to 25.3 percents, and rural areas from 17.3 to 111.8 percents. Percent of population with college degree is 16.7 in small towns, compared to 25.8 percents in urban areas and 10.1 percents in rural areas.
Economic structure of small towns is oriented toward localized economic activities as seen in the higher ratio of basic service industries in terms of the number of businesses and jobs. Spatial patterns of small town growth and decline represent overall patterns of regional development in Korea. Small towns located in the prospering regions such as the Capital Region and provinces in the southeast coastal region have outperformed those in others regions experiencing economic difficulties such as provinces in the southwest coastal region and inland regions with poor economic basis. The findings strongly suggest that Korean small towns are losing bases as the central places of rural community, which has been the traditional and theoretical role of the small towns in the national settlements system.
The new strategy to empower small towns has to be based on the four principles. The first strategy is to recover the balance of the national settlements system. An important condition for the stable settlement system is to promote healthy small towns all over the country. The development of small towns will mitigate the loss of population and the lack of economic opportunities of small towns. The second strategy is to overcome the problems and limitations of existing policies to promote small towns. Existing top-down and government oriented approaches have to place emphasis on bottom-up and community oriented approaches. In addition, small town development plan has to
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consider rural communities surrounding or adjacent small towns, allowing the participation of actors from broader communities. The third strategy is to learn from success stories from advanced countries. The United Kingdom, France, Japan, the European Union and the US governments have a variety of small town development programs. The market town initiatives of the UK, network development programs of French small town development, the empowerment zones and enterprise community programs of the US, and small town development programs of Japan offer useful lessons and implications to Korea. The last strategy is to respond to the paradigm changes in national territorial development. The new Korean government emphasizes a balanced territorial development by setting the issue as one of national agendas. An important component of the national territorial development strategy is to fully utilize regional characteristics. Increased assistance from the central government through budget allocation and decentralization of power will enhance the position of regional governments. Promotion of small towns has to be a priority goal for the balanced development of the national territory.
The research proposes basic outlines for the new small town development program consisted of five components. The first is to introduce the concept of small town urban space. The existing development program, which is confined to the administrative areas of small towns, does not fully consider functional relationship between central towns and rural communities. The small town urban space has to be the basis of the regional development plan. The central government can offer financial and institutional assistance for area-wide development initiatives of local governments. The second component is to place a strategic emphasis on selective geographic areas and economic sectors. Due to the limited resources both at the central and local governments, a special attention is needed for strategic areas such as depressed regions and rural tourism. The third component is to form regional partnership for small town development. The existing approach based on local governments has showed an limitation in mobilizing region-wide participation both from public and private sectors. The formation of regional partnership from general people, businesses, private and public institutions, councils and governments is expected to increase participation and help to accomplish policy goals.
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The forth component is to introduce intergovernmental agreement (or contractual) system. The central and local governments can agree on the details of the development plan to assure the implementation of the plan by sharing responsibility. The last component is to establish an efficient implementation system. The coordination among the related ministries of the central government, and cooperation between the central and regional governments is essential for the success of the small town development program. In addition, provincial governments have to contribute to the development of small towns through the technical assistance during the planning process and budget allocation during the implementation process.
