• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.312-334
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• 2010

This paper examines the process of Gyeongbu Highway construction from the standpoint of political economy, which was pursued by President Park Jeong-Hee in the 1960s, focusing on the politics of mobility and demarcation implied in it. As results of examination, it can be argued that Gyeongbu Highway was seen as a powerful element to promote a socio-spatial integration of population and hence to enforce an authoritative political power of the Park regime through creation of mobility; that it has had an strong impact on changing the physical landscape of national space and the spatio-temporal rhythm of everyday life by extending the 'machine space' as a non-place; that it has provided a physical infrastructure on which the period of capital circulation could be reduced through its effect of space-time compression. But Gyeongbu Highway has led serious problems such as uneven regional development, expansion of non-place or alienated place, ecological destruction and pollution. In conclusion, a sustainable politics is suggested to overcome this kind of 'tragedy of highway' and to develop the highway as a true way of political and spatial balance and integration.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.321-334
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• 2018

There are many factors that cause uneven regional developments in the country and one of main factors is outflow of regional income or products. The purpose of this study is to analyze regional production runoff by comparing GRDP and GRNI in basic local governments level. In this study, GRNI of basic local governments are estimated by local income tax data, The results of the study are as follows. Firstly, GRNI is more concentrated than GRDP. The analysis of Moran I showed that the spatial autocor-relation of GRNI is more distinct than that of GRDP. Local Moran I analysis shows that spatial hot spots and cold spots are more apparent in GRNI than GRDP. Secondly, the outflows of GRDP into a small number of regions are apparent. In about 80% of basic local governments, the net outflows of GRDP occur. The large net outflow regions are cities where manufacturing industry has developed and in the 20 lowest net outflow rate regions, 70-80% of GRDP outflows. The large net inflow regions are metropolitan area in Seoul and large local cities. Seocho-gu, Yongsan-gu, and Gangnam-gu in Seoul have a large net inflows and net inflow rates are over 90% of GRDP.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.73-90
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• 2015

This article focuses on geo-institutional differentiation and a multi-scalar analysis of emerging capitalist development in Laos. It discusses the impact of the Greater Mekong Subregion on new institutional economic and economic geographical arrangements. It demonstrates the usefulness of the varieties of Asian capitalism approach. The rubber industry was chosen to unravel emerging but various sub-national institutional arrangements linked to higher scale levels. Rubber is a growing agribusiness industry throughout the country, led by the insatiable demand from China. Overall, this study shows that the capitalist development of the rubber industry features much geo-institutional differentiation, due to the different strategies of Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese investors. Since Laos is still in transition from a state-led economy to something else, it is impossible at this to identify the exact number capitalisms. Yet, the evidence on rubber clearly lays bare the presence of multiple institutional arrangements. Without more inclusiveness, however, the implications for regional development are worrying. Exclusive arrangements will most likely lead to more uneven regional development and higher regional inequality. To refine theories on sub-national varieties of capitalism in developing countries it is instructive to consider more explicitly the notion of regional personal capitalisms and the complex interplay between national and regional states and relationships between capital accumulation and livelihood analyses.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.240-250
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• 2018

By the end of 2017, in a world of 7.6 billion people, there were inequalities in healthcare indices both within and between nations, and this gap continues to increase. Therefore, this study aims to understand the current status of regional inequalities in healthcare indices and to find an action plan to tackle regional health inequality through a geo-economic review in Korea. Since 2008, there was great inequality in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by region in not only metropolitan cities but also districts in Korea. While the community health statistics from 2008-2017 show a continuous increase of inequality during the last 10 years in most healthcare indices related to noncommunicable diseases (except for some, like smoking), the inequality has doubled in 254 districts. Furthermore, health inequality intensified as the gap between urban (metropolitan cities) and rural regions (counties) for rates of obesity (self-reported), sufficient walking practices, and healthy lifestyle practices increased from twofold to fivefold. However, regionalism and uneven development are natural consequences of the spatial perspective caused by state-lead developmentalism as Korea has fixed the accumulation strategy as its model for growth with the background of export-led industrialization in the 1960s and heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s, although the Constitution of the Republic of Korea recognizes the legal value of balanced development within the regions by specifying "the balanced development of the state" or "ensuring the balanced development of all regions." In addition, the danger of a 30% decline or extinction of local government nationwide is expected by 2040 as we face not only a decline in general and ageing populations but also the era of the demographic cliff. Thus, the government should continuously operate the "Special Committee on Regional Balanced Development" with a government-wide effort until 2030 to prevent disparities in the health conditions of local residents, which is the responsibility of the nation in terms of strengthening governance. To address the regional inequalities of rural and urban regions, it is necessary to re-adjust the basic subsidy and cost-sharing rates with local governments of current national subsidies based mainly on population scale, financial independence of local government, or distribution of healthcare resources and healthcare indices (showing high inequalities) overall.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.307-330
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• 2016

This article aims to explain how Gangnam, as a model and standard of compressed urbanization in South Korea, was created. Gangnam and Gangnam-style urbanization need attention not only because they contrast with Korea's urbanization in the past as well as urbanization in the West but also they provide an important model in contemporary Korea's politics, economy and culture. However, there are little studies of how Gangnam's peculiar urbanism was created. To fill this gap, this article will first capture Gangnam's peculiar urbanism as a material landscape and sociocultural lifestyle. Gangnam-style urbanism is (a) materially characterized by high-rise apartment complexes owned by the middle and upper class for dwelling and asset growth and (b) socio-culturally characterized by political conservatism, public indifference, competition over academic performance, appearance, and fashion, and nightlife. Then it will show Gangnam's archetype was created in a spatially and temporally compressed way in and through the spatial selectivity of Korean anti-communist authoritarian developmental state strategies: (1) anti-communism led to the diffusion and accommodation of the population through apartments in Gangnam in the context of its confrontation with North Korea and the fast-growing population of Seoul; (2) military authoritarianism excluded the low-income class and the urban poor from urban development; and (3) the developmental state adopted selective housing policy which treated construction companies and the middle class preferentially through exceptional zoning and price distortions, promoting the construction of apartment in Gangnam and its resultant uneven development.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.203-221
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• 2002

This study attempts to analyze the spatial characteristics of cyberspace and to map spatial variations of cyberspace. In order to analyze the spatial distribution of cyberspace, three measurement indices are selected such as commercial domain number, Internet backbone network, and Internet users, which are highly correlated to each other. The three sets of measurement showed that cyberspace in Korea is spreading in a highly uneven fashion, strongly favoring a few cities and unfavoring economically distressed cities. Seoul acts on overwhelmingly dominant role in cyberspace, by being concentrated a number of domains and having high-capacity bandwidth on Internet backbone network. Internet is selectively connecting several cities into highly interactive networks, while at the same time largely bypassing other cities. The development of Internet network through infrastructure investments at selected cities has resulted in an uneven accessibility and digital divide among cities. The regional disparity would be further reinforced by ICT development as the primary vehicle for unequal accessibility. The result of this study revealed that geography continues to matter, despite the recent rhetoric claiming of 'the death of distance'or 'the end of geography'.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.97-107
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to make a survey of the operation of childcare facilities in rural regions through in-depth interviews with 5 facility principals. Owing to regional disadvantages, rural childcare facilities have many problems as follows: uneven distribution of facilities, shortage of teachers, financial difficulties, unsuitable programs for rural regions, insufficient reeducation of principals and teachers, and poor operations and accessibility for handicapped or very young children. The principals proposed that many conditions might be made better as follows: evenly distributing facilities in step with needs and supply, raising the salary of teachers of rural facilities, supporting the facilities themselves side by side with supporting children, improving 'childcare fee supporting system' of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, developing and spreading programs suitable for rural regions, and promoting the reeducation of principals and teachers through online programs.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 2016

This paper is to consider trends and issues of regional research in major sub-fields of human geography in Korea, following the previous one which dealt with contexts and general trends of new regional geography in Korea since the 2000s. They include historical and cultural geography on place and landscape, economic geography on industrial districts or agglomerated regions (i.e. clusters) and urban (and social) geography on urban networks and differentiation. Even though researchers in sub-fields have used different terms and concepts to identify region, they are in common to relate specificities of region to general processes such as (de)modernization, (de)industrialization, and globalization, to understand region as social and discursive constitution as well as substantive reality, and to give more attention to socio-spatial networks and relationality than territoriality of regions. These common points seem to reflect the emerging trend of new regional geography, and to get rid of existing traditional concept of region. It is suggested that major tasks for conceptualization of region in future research are to overcome dichotomy of speciality and generality, of substantive reality and discursive constitution, and of territoriality and relationality, and that important issues for empirical research on region include regional synthesis from new perspectives, uneven regional development as relational process in and between regions, and producing practice for alternative regions.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.428-446
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• 2004

This paper is to analyze citizens' consciousness on urban changes during the 1900s in the sectors of economy, politics and socio-culture of large cities in Korea, especially comparing them in Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, and Kywangju. The items of questionnaire are drawn from theories on each sector of new urbanization of large city in Western countries, that is, that of post-Fordism, of urban governance, of post-modernism, and of sustainable city. Some major findings of this questionnaire analysis are as follows. First, on the change of large cities in general, citizens think that the sectors of spatial structure, and of socio-culture of the cities were changed more than those of urban economy and of urban politics. Secondly, in the sector of urban economy, citizens recognize that the obstructing factors of development, that is, the lack of regional capital and the absence of head-quarter of large firms, which seems to be resulted from uneven regional development in the previous periods were much more serious than others, while acknowledging the importance of high-tech industry. Thirdly, in the sector of urban politics, citizens think that the centralized structure of politics and of political parties was still problematic, while acknowledging the importance of entrepreneur mind of urban governor. Finally, in the sector of urban socio-culture, citizens emphasize the development of telecommunication, the popularization of private automobile and the increasing use of credit card, as three major factors which have exercised major impacts on the development of urban socio-culture.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.145-170
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• 2003

Since 1980's, the opportunities of higher education have increased absolutely to the extent worrying of over-education. The over-education means that job-seekers having a bachelor degree flow into job market much more than necessary and the problem of unemployment and under-employment becomes more serious. These changes in the labor market can affect the university selection behaviors of high school graduates. This study aims to reveal the impacts of over-education in Chungbuk, a periphery region, Korea. As expected, many of college graduates flow down into jobs asking school years less than higher education. On the other hand, high school graduates have an tendency of choosing a college, especially a college in center region, other than universities in Chungbuk, to expect more stable and rewarding job in income and upward mobility after the graduation of higher education. As the result of this, a regional university district, which means most of students in the region enter college within region limit, is getting broken into more smaller districts, a kind of local district. It can be thought as a sign that the dominance of regional center is weakening and more cities in the region receive a direct affects from center region, not through regional center.