The main purpose of this study is to identify sprawl regions and their spatial distributional characteristics around major metropolitan regions in Korea. This study also relates with the indirect evaluation of the urban growth control policies. The po...
The main purpose of this study is to identify sprawl regions and their spatial distributional characteristics around major metropolitan regions in Korea. This study also relates with the indirect evaluation of the urban growth control policies. The policies are evaluated through three indicators -- population, residential density and road area per capita. The main findings are follows. First, population of major cities has been decreased. But, the population of suburban areas are explosive. The sprawl regions are identified in the outer-skirt of metropolitan areas in irregular patterns. Second, the residential density becomes higher as a population size of cities increases. However, there is no evidence of American type of sprawl -- low density development in the suburban areas -- in the case of Korean metros. Third, urban sprawl is highly related with residential density, i.e., there is a very strong negative relationship between the degree of urban sprawl(measured by road area per capita and the growth rate of road area per capita) and residential density. Forth, the increase in road area per capita contributes to reduce home-to-work travel time for car drivers only.