• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.549-563
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to identify the urban structure in Korea. Though there is research regarding urbanization, there is little regarding the urban structure of the Korean economy. In this paper, two issues will be discussed: the measurements of inter-city and intra-city structure in Korean Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), which is newly defined. First, the city size rank rule, widely known as Zipf’s Law, will illustrate Korean the inter-city structure. The city size rank rule gives an idea whether Korean MSAs are balanced or not. In general, Korea has a heavy concentration in the Seoul MSA in terms of population. It could be either that the Seoul MSA is too big or that the Busan MSA is too small or both. If this is the primacy problem, a decentralization policy is necessary. On the other hand, if it is a second city problem, development policies for the Busan MSA and Daegu MSA are more important. Next, the Korean intra-city structure will be discussed. The evolutions of the MSAs explain intra-city structure by analyzing population density function and the housing price function. Some large MSAs such as Seoul and Busan have experienced urban sprawl, while other MSAs have experienced urban concentration. The population density gradient by the distance from the ARC GIS shows the growth rate of a city. According to the Spatial Mismatch Index between population and employment, the Ulsan MSA, Gwangju MSA, and Suwon-Hwaseong-Osan MSA are more mismatched, while the Daejeon MSA and Incheon MSA are less mismatched. Therefore, these analyses of Korean urban structure are meaningful in developing regional policy.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.290-300
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• 2007

In this study, web document frequency of city place name is analyzed and it is used as the dataset for rank-size analysis. The search keywords are compared in the context of spatial meaning and the different domain corpus is applied. The acquired search results are applied for the further analysis. Firstly, the rank-size analysis is applied to compare the result between population and document frequency. Secondly, in case of correlation analysis, the significant changes are revealed when the spatial criteria for search keywords are increased. In case of corpus, COM, NET, and ORG shows the higher coefficient values. Lastly, the cluster analysis is applied to classify the list of cities that shows the similarity and difference. These analyses have a significant role in representing the rank-size distribution of city names that are reflected on the web documents in the information society.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.447-464
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• 2014

Creative industries are important due to the capability of enhancing urban competitiveness. This study is focused on unravelling the uneven growth and geographic distributions of creative industries. The main results are as follows. First, the primary city, Seoul, has too much eminence than the citysize rule suggests, and the creative-industry elasticity is very high compared to population and all industry. Second, Seoul is reinforcing the uneven growth with adjacent cities. Third, the local main cities have little power to enhance creative industries and the local small cities grow randomly. Fourth, each city should have more deliberation in accepting creative industries as an urban growth strategy.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.559-568
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• 2011

This study aims at listing up those manufacturing activities sensitive to regional characteristics by analyzing locational hierarchy designed on the urban rank-size rule. This locational hierarchy by manufacturing activities is expected to provide a ground for the proper supply of an industrial complex. The analysis of the locational hierarchy by manufacturing activities can work as a method of observing the characteristics of the distribution of location for each economic activity by analyzing the trend in the change of manufacturing location. Consequently, it can be used to determine the appropriate manufacturing activities for the industrial complex of a particular region. Here, the locational hierarchy is analyzed depending on the base of the basic local government such as Gun(district level) and Si(city level), and manufacturing activities are categorized by Korea Standard Industry Code. Those activities demonstrating growth pattern are Manufacture of Electronic Equipment(KSIC 26), Manufacture of Medical Precision Optical Instruments Watch(KSIC 27), Manufacture of Motor Vehicles (KSIC 30, 31), etc. With proper infrastructures, these activities can be located everywhere. Those sectors on the decline pattern in the locational hierarchy can be summarized as Manufacture of Tobacco Products(KSIC 12), Manufacture of wearing apparel Fur Articles(KSIC 14), etc. Those sectors scattered widely in the locational hierarchy are Manufacture of Food Products(KSIC 10), Manufacture of Coke Petroleum Products(KSIC 19), Manufacture of Chemical Products(KSIC 20), Manufacture of Electronic Equipment(KSIC 26). These particular manufacturing activities can be operated in those regions in a sufficient supply of unskilled workers regardless of proper infrastructures. Those activities that have a tendency to reconcentrate on larger cities are Manufacture of Textiles(KSIC 13), Manufacture of Wearing Apparel Clothing Fur Articles(KSIC 14), Manufacture of Other Transport Equiptmen(KSIC 31). In most cases, these sectors tend to favor their existing agglomerated areas and concentrate around large cities. Therefore, it is inefficient to promote these sectors in small or medium-sized cities or underdeveloped regions. The establishment of developmental strategies of an industrial complex can gain greater competitiveness by observing such characteristics of the locational hierarchy.