History of Seoul’s Parks and Green Space Policies: Focusing on Policy Changes in Urban Development

Jeonghee Choi and Gunwoo Kim
Additional contact information
Jeonghee Choi: Graduate School of Urban Studies, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Korea
Gunwoo Kim: Graduate School of Urban Studies, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Korea

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-28

Abstract: Globally, urban areas have been expanding rapidly since industrialization. In South Korea, urban policy has evolved according to urban development, but the change in parks and green spaces policy for a pleasant urban environment is insignificant. The purpose of this study is to present the direction of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s parks and green spaces policy in terms of green infrastructure, by examining urban policies and changes in the parks and green spaces policy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The research method established the concepts of urbanization, green park areas, and green infrastructure, focusing on a literature review. The trends in urban development in South Korea and abroad, the correlation between urban development and green park areas, and changes in the parks and green spaces policy of Seoul are examined. The study found that urbanization in South Korea has augmented since 1960, and the parks and green spaces policy has also focused on quantitative expansion. As the era of local autonomy passed, there were remarkable policy changes tailored to citizens’ needs, and major policy directions were determined according to the political inclinations of policymakers. The era of low growth adopted the policy of introducing green park areas as green infrastructure to solve urban environmental problems, and parks and green spaces policies as strategic plans to re-naturalize smart green cities and urban infrastructure, and to increase urban resilience using advanced technology. Future research is expected regarding consistent policy implementation measures linked to the state-regions, such as analyzing citizens’ perceptions of policies to solve urban problems and taking practical measures for the implementation of parks and green spaces policies to expand green infrastructure. The implication of the study is that the green infrastructure strategy is important as a solution to urban environmental issues such as climate change. Therefore, there should be a will of policymakers and strong institutional support for continuous policy promotion.

Keywords: urban policy; urban environmental policy issues; green infrastructure; urban policy paradigm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/4/474/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/4/474/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:4:p:474-:d:780038

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().