Building Sustainable Communities in local small and medium-sized cities, Required Tasks and Execution Plans

Managing Director Jungeun Park, Research Fellow Sangyeon Lim, Assistant Research Fellow Taeyoung Kim

Summary

1. By conducting in-depth studies on the actual status of 14 cases of 7 projects for 'community building,’ which are in progress by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the characteristics of ‘community building’ in local small and medium-sized cities in Korea are derived.

- The sense of community in the village is strong but it is difficult to find resident organizations and leaders that represent the community, and formation/support for intermediate support organizations and execution of projects related to others are not fully deployed. 

2. Four core tasks to secure sustainability for the development of local small and medium-sized cities

- ① Enhancement of person-centered resident capacity and activation of resident participation, ② Role changes in central and local governments, ③ Activation of resident-driven planning and institutional support for realizing the plan, ④ Activation and support for intermediate support organizations, etc.

3. (Japan case) Recent reinforcement of activation measures for independence recent local cities and undersized areas, and distribution of ‘Local Organization Operating Manual’ by General Affairs Office of Central Government, and in local cities, execution of community building projects leading by local residents with the utilization of this manual, and in particular, active effort to link projects in the same areas 

4. For building sustainable community in local small and medium-sized cities, it is urgent to prepare policy measures such as expanding customized support for small and medium-sized cities with low financial independence, project supporting focusing on discovering and nurturing main participants, establishing and reinforcing roles of large regional support organizations, etc., but short-term, result-based performance assessment should be avoided. 

Policy Plans

① (Establishment of customized public type project for local small and medium-sized cities) Supporting residents to make plans for a community by developing community agenda through enhancement of residents’ capacity and to execute small-scale projects with easy execution based on the community plans. 

- Execution by small projects with less than 100 million own for up to 2 years (National support with minimizing size and maximizing numbers)

② (Preparation and distribution of Manual for Execution Process) Distributing manuals at national level to guide execution process to discovering and nurturing main participants, who are key factors for securing sustainability

- Avoid ‘menu plate’ form, and guiding for discovering and nurturing main participants and maximizing scalability of residents organizations

③ (Establishment and strengthening the role of large regional support organizations) Building and operating expert consulting pool, comprehensive systematic workforce management (after the end of national support, re-education and dispatch of activators, coordinator, etc.), building of performance management systems