In the past, a city was usually maintained by large-scale development after complete demolition of buildings, but recently urban regeneration projects are drawing attention for improvement of the living environment while maintaining and preserving the...
In the past, a city was usually maintained by large-scale development after complete demolition of buildings, but recently urban regeneration projects are drawing attention for improvement of the living environment while maintaining and preserving the existing structure of the city. The Moon Jae-In government, too, proposed urban regeneration as a major policy for urban management through Urban Regeneration New Deal Project, and Seoul Metropolitan Government has been implementing urban regeneration projects beginning with the New Town and Redevelopment Resolution Plan established in January 2012. Urban regeneration aims to revitalize the entire region by creating jobs, encouraging business foundation by both the young and the middle-aged, etc. based on the improvement of living environment and community revitalization under the big goal of a comprehensive revitalization of the region. Meanwhile, alleys are the base of the activities of the local residents, and most outdoor activities are performed in alleys. Therefore, alleys are very important in urban regeneration project, and revitalization of the alley commercial district formed in and around alleys will certainly contribute to the revitalization of the entire region. In this regard, this study aims to propose an index for revitalization of the regional economy, which is the major objective of urban regeneration, by elucidating the influence of urban regeneration on the change of alley commercial district through analysis of the change of sales and floating population of the alley commercial districts in and near the areas of Phase1 Urban Regeneration Project in Seoul.
For such a purpose, this study focused on the influence of Seoul type urban regeneration project of Seoul Metropolitan Government on the change of alley commercial districts and summarized Phase1 urban regeneration project and commercial districts systematically. In addition, this study was conducted on the influence of urban regeneration on alley commercial districts by analyzing the change of sales and floating population of alley commercial districts. The research objects of this study chosen for examination of the influence of urban regeneration on alley commercial districts are the 5 areas of general neighborhood regeneration projects in Changsin‧Sungin, Seongsu-dong, Amsa-dong, Jangwi-dong and Sangdo 4-dong among the Phase1 urban regeneration areas in Seoul and the alley commercial districts within 1km of radius from the areas of general neighborhood regeneration projects.
First, this study analyzed the change of the sales and floating population of each alley commercial district and then extracted the factors of urban regeneration project which affected the change of commercial districts through review of preceding researches and examined the change of the alley commercial districts in each area. Meanwhile, the alley commercial districts in the research object areas are adjoining each other, and thus people can use various commercial districts moving across them freely. Therefore, it was expected that spatial autocorrelation will occur due to such a locational characteristic. To verify it, spatial weighted matrix was made up and Moran’s I statistics were measured by using it for analysis of the pattern of spatial cluster.
The following are the results of the analysis.
According to the analysis of the pattern of change of the sales and floating population of the alley commercial districts in urban regeneration areas as of the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to the fourth quarter of 2014, the average sales increased by 36.6% in the alley commercial districts in urban regeneration areas; increased by 21.8% in the alley commercial districts within 1km of radius from urban regeneration areas; and increased by only 14.6% in the rest alley commercial districts. As for floating population, it decreased by 14.0% in the alley commercial districts out of 1km of radius from urban regeneration areas while the rate of decrease of floating population was 11.6% and 6.3% in the alley commercial districts in urban regeneration areas and in the alley commercial districts within 1km of radius respectively. It shows that urban regeneration had a certain degree of positive effect on the change of sales and floating population of alley commercial districts.
According to the analysis of the change of sales of each type of business, the rate of change of sales was the highest in urban regeneration areas in all the types of business of food service, service industry and retail industry. In the case of food service and service industry, the rate of increase of sales in urban regeneration areas was more than double that of the areas out of 1km of radius, and the rate of increase of sales of retail industry was more than 4 times. The rate of increase of sales in the alley commercial districts within 1km of radius from the boundary of urban regeneration areas was also higher than the alley commercial districts out of 1km of radius in all types of business. Thus, it can be estimated that urban regeneration had a positive effect on the increase of sales in the alley commercial districts in and near the urban regeneration area.
Next, each alley commercial district of the urban regeneration area was examined in detail. Among the commercial districts in urban regeneration areas, all the alley commercial districts except Seongsuil-ro 6-gil in Seongsu-dong and Amsa-gil in Amsa-dong achieved increase of sales of the entire types of business. In contrast, Seongsuil-ro 6-gil saw decrease of sales of the entire types of business by 3.2%, probably due to the destruction of commercial districts for new construction of Knowledge Industry Center, etc. and decrease of workers in the area. Sales of Amsa-gil decreased by 17.8% but it is expected that sales will increase with the passage of time by the effect of urban regeneration project considering that the sales of Olympic-ro 98-gil, an adjoining alley commercial district of a similar characteristic, increased by 103.9%. The 322.4%~2,621.8% increase of sales of each type of business in Amsa-gil alley commercial district in the second quarter of 2019 supports such a prediction. Meanwhile, floating population decreased by 9.9%~63.4% in all the alley commercial districts except Seoulsup 2-gil, Seongsui-ro 7-gil, Amsa-gil and Yangnyeong-ro 26-gil. It is the same as the general tendency of Seoul which saw average 14.0% decrease in the floating population of all alley commercial districts. Among the alley commercial districts which had more floating population, Seoulsup 2-gil and Seongsui-ro 7-gil are located in Seongsu-dong which is one of the representative areas of gentrification. It is expected that the rise in floating population of the concerned alley commercial district was made possible by the existence of the representative cafe street of Seongsu-dong area. It is thought that Amsa-gil and Yangnyeong-ro 26-gil were affected by the factors of urban regeneration project implemented in the concerned alley commercial district such as the program of improvement of pedestrian space & street environment and the program of improvement & construction of parks and green space.
It was expected that there would be spatial autocorrelation due to the locational characteristic of the alley commercial districts which adjoin each other. Thus, the pattern of spatial clustering was analysed by measuring Moran’s I statistics with the dependent variables of the rate of change of sales of the entire types of business, the rate of change of sales of food service, the rate of change of sales of service industry, the rate of change of sales of retail industry and the rate of change of floating population. As a result, spatial autocorrelation occurred in service industry(-0.162), retail industry(-0.127) and floating population(0.323) in Changsin‧Sungin leading area and in service industry(0.482) in Seongsu-dong. In Amsa-dong, spatial autocorrelation occurred in the entire types of business(-0.331), service industry(-0.324) and retail industry(-0.258). In Jangwi-dong, spatial autocorrelation occurred in food service(-0.166) and floating population(0.202). Lastly, in Sangdo 4-dong, much spatial autocorrelation occurred in food service(0.270) and floating population(0.340). A positive spatial autocorrelation means a pattern of spatial clustering of the alley commercial districts with higher or lower rates of change of sales and floating population by themselves, and a negative spatial autocorrelation means that the alley commercial districts with higher and lower rates of change being distributed regularly in mixture taking turns. A spatial autocorrelation close to zero(0) means a spatial pattern of the alley commercial districts positioned randomly in the area.
According to the results of this study, urban regeneration has a positive influence on the change of alley commercial districts, but it was difficult to verify meaningful results in the change of sales or floating population by the specific factors of each type of urban regeneration project. However, it is thought that the synergy and ripple effect of comprehensively implemented various types of specific urban regeneration projects had a positive influence on the alley commercial district in and near the location of urban regeneration projects. Thus, it will be necessary to implement the detailed programs of urban regeneration harmoniously with systematic and comprehensive plans reflecting the characteristics of each area in order to restore the vitality of the area through revitalization of alley commercial districts.
Meanwhile, it is expected that the types of business which can play a central role in each alley commercial district will appear among food service, service industry and retail industry according to the position of the concerned commercial district and external factors such as the composition of population of the hinterland. It will be possible to achieve the goal of urban regeneration to give a boost to the area through revitalization of commercial districts more easily if the characteristics of each alley commercial district is defined by analysis of the change of sales and floating population of each type of business in alley commercial districts based on such characteristics of the area.
The important significance of this study is that it empirically verified the effect of urban regeneration through analysis of the change of sales and floating population in alley commercial district and also examined alley commercial district, which is drawing much attention in recent times, in respect to the specific programs of urban regeneration and the change of alley commercial district. Especially, this study carefully examined the change of the sales and floating population of the entire types of business, food service, service industry and retail industry separately for the short period of implementation of urban regeneration. Therefore, if the results of this study are used for the establishment of systematic plans for future urban regeneration projects, it will be possible to revitalize alley commercial districts effectively by implementing a pilot project for a short time, give a boost to the regional economy using it and contribute to revitalization of urban regeneration areas and the adjoining areas.
Meanwhile, this study has limitations due to the problems in selection of the research object areas and the period of research. If sufficient objects of analysis can be secured after completion of the urban regeneration project generating much effect and a quantitative analysis could be made on the effects of the specific factors of urban regeneration project on the change of commercial districts, it will become possible to make a real contribution to the revitalization of the regional economy through urban regeneration.