Ways to Implement Contact City Policy Effectively

Senior Researcher Kwon Kyu-sang, Head of Urban Regeneration Research Center Seo Min-ho

Summary

1> The need for the development of compact urban space development increases as urban donut phenomenon is aggravated due to development of suburb area and the burden of maintaining infrastructure in small and medium sized cities in regions increased due to population reduction.

2> Compact city is an urban planning concept that pursues the concentration of city functions and residence spatially for the efficient and sustainable use of resources.

3> The results of analysis on domestic cities show that the cities with high level of density and composite use of land among various factors of compact city are effective in securing economic sustainability of the entire city relatively.

  - Decreased population density due to the expansion of market area to population, separation of living and job areas and deterioration of access to living services are likely to cause the reduction in labor productivity in cities.

4> Japan is implementing a compact city policy that designates the urban functions and residence inducing zones at traffic nodes, focusing on local small and medium sized cities expected to reduce populations through municipal master plan and location optimization plan.

  - Japanese compact city policy is assessed as a successful policy in terms of population inflow into residence inducing zone and vitalization of the public transportation means.

  - However, the policy faced limitation in terms of vitalization of basis due to failure in deterring suburb area and inefficiencies caused by securing multiple basis.

Policy proposals

① (Concentration on basis and defining relationship among bases) Adopt the “innovative, special base system” considering urban characteristics, concentrate functions on a small number of bases through urban regeneration, provide financial resources and implement ease of regulation from the urban planning perspective and establish a mutually complementary relationship with existing city centers for areas where new bases are already established such as innovative cities.

② (Establishment of the system to make an integrated and long-term plan) For mature and stable cities under master plan for cities, make it mandatory to establish the urban regeneration strategies and plans and strengthen the consistency between the master plan for cities and urban regeneration strategies and plans.

③ (Implementation of incentive policies to regulate the development of suburb area and induce residence near bases) Strengthen the standard for the permission of development of suburb area, vitalize the establishment of ways to manage growth, establish measures to prevent over-estimation of the demand for the land for housing in suburb, provide various incentives to attract new residents to areas near bases and establish measures to strengthen the function of living bases.