• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2020

Urban parks are important spaces of ecological and socio-cultural value to citizens who lead busy lives in increasingly complex and densely populated megalopolises. However, creating and maintaining city parks takes the will of the authorities to put it into practice and provide the attendant financial resources. That explains why we are focused on the budget aspects for the Seoul Metropolitan City in relation to creating park spaces. Our findings were as follows: 1) The overall city budget has steadily increased, but the budget allocated to Green Seoul Bureau and new park development has decreased since 2011. 2) As for elected officials, the budget grew during the time of the first, third, and fourth mayors as the creation of parks was considered to be a major priority, but after the sixth popularly elected mayor, the budget was sharply cut. 3) About 10% of the budget was allocated to the parks managed by the self-governing districts, compared to the ones under the direct management of the city. Furthermore, the analysis of the average annual budget for each park and how long (in terms of year) the budget for each park is invested showed that it was classified into three different types of category. Local governments adhere to the principle that their budget must be compiled and expended for a single year, which makes it hard to establish and push ahead with a long-term plan. However, as parks and green areas should not be approached from a short-term perspective for performance but from a long-term perspective, securing the consistent amount of budget is essential. This study has significance in that it attempted to analyze the budget issues related to parks, which has not been studied in depth so far, but the subject in this paper was limited to the budget for Green Seoul Bureau. Therefore, further research is needed because the parks managed by the self-governing districts were not considered.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.10-19
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• 2020

The park program can adeptly cope with the diversification of leisure needs in accordance with the changing times. The program also makes the relationship between the users and the park itself closer. For this reason, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has operated a variety of programs, beginning with the Botanical Class Program at the Namsan Outdoor Botanical Garden in 1997. The government additionally began to organize park programs by establishing the Park and Leisure Department and three Park Greenery Offices. However, research on park programs is mainly focused on park users. Therefore, this study intends to reveal the structure of the programs by studying the program operation. The specific purposes of this study are '1. Review the institutional characteristics that underlie the operation of the Park Program in Seoul by examining the relevant laws, the operation organizations, and the personnel composition, 2. Analyze the operation methods, such as procurement and the execution of the program, operation costs, and public-private cooperation methods, etc. 3. Analyze the composition and contents of the program from 2015 to 2017, and process and identify the relationship between the structure of the program operation and the program itself.' Summarizing the results obtained from the study, as far as the structure of the first program operation, the support laws were not systematic, but the operating organization was working to establish a system. The second characteristic of the operation is that most of the budget was funded by local governments, but the level of citizen involvement was low. Third, when we looked at the characteristics of the program, the number of programs increased, but they were focused on a specific theme and few programs actively used the park facilities. Based on the results, three tasks can be proposed. The first is that the 'Act on Parks and Green Spaces' should include the concepts and support for park programs. Second, there is a need to change from the ideas of the quantitative increase of programs to qualitative improvements. Lastly, it is necessary to reorganize the Green Seoul Bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Government into a citizen-led and leisure-oriented organization to promote the park leisure culture. This study has significance, as it was conducted with a service provider, not a program user, unlike many previous park program-related studies. The results of this study will be able to contribute not only to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, but also to other local governments to suggest the direction of the management and the operation of the park for the consumer, and consequently, it will help prepare the long-term vision of parks as the closest leisure location for most citizens.