City, a center of active mutual transactions and information exchanges, had been originally created with its own attract factors, as it could work as a town of administration, business and commerce. In general, these functions are densely concentrated...
City, a center of active mutual transactions and information exchanges, had been originally created with its own attract factors, as it could work as a town of administration, business and commerce. In general, these functions are densely concentrated on central business districts with high accessibility even in a city and most active movement of personal and material resources. Among others, commercial area in downtown takes a greatest pivotal position within a city. Indeed, it is a source of socioeconomic energy for a city and is used as a symbolic space for urbanites owing to a cumulative pile of a city's histories and traditions. Thus, there have been many researches focusing upon the internal structure of city and commercial area of downtown as cities have developed.
Myeong-dong, the target area of this study, is a central business district of Seoul metropolitan city, which provides the best quality of specialized retailing functions, and keeps taking a crucial part of Seoul up to date. That is why this neighborhood shows a diversified and very complex pattern of land use. Previous studies on Myeong-dong have focused primarily on characterizing its commercial buildings in regard to urban architecture, or analyzing some retail services and business office functions of Myeong-dong. However, land use tends to have different characteristics depending on occupied population per time zone, and also cumulates in a cluster of business categories that share similar time zones and have associations with one another under such an influence. So it is estimated that the cumulative land use is possibly more remarkable at midnight with limited accessibility and use of traffic means than other time zones.
The purpose of this study was to perform a field survey on different functional subjects located in Myeong-dong, so that it could identify urban structure and microscopic land use of Myeong-dong as a CBD hardcore area, and could thereby determine characteristics and floor-specific distributions of active functional subjects by time zone. In addition, this study also sought to identify possible associations of land value and accessibility with active characteristics of each time zone, so that it could examine the nature of Myeong-dong as downtown commercial district covered by this study, which changes by time zone. The results of this study can be outlined as follows:
First, according to a field survey on 2,667 functional subjects located in Myeong-dong, it was found that there were major functional subjects of Myeong-dong such as j (common business office), p (restaurant business) and h (clothing retailer) function, which accounted for 21.4%, 16.3% and 11.9% of all functional subjects in Myeong-dong respectively. In the sense that they belong to single functional body, this finding reflects commercial and business functions crowded in Myeong-dong and each function was located to reflect accessibility and historical inertia.
Secondly, this study surveyed actual profile on activity of functional subjects per time zone in order to characterize sites activated at each time zone. The field survey hereof was conducted at 3 major time zones such as daytime (AM 11 to PM 1), nighttime (PM 17 to PM 19) and midnight (PM 22 to AM 00). As a result, it was found that the most active function of daytime and nighttime was j (business office) that was followed by p (restaurant business) and h (clothing retailer); and the most active function of midnight was p (restaurant business) that was followed by q (cafe) and s (sleeping accommodations).
Thirdly, in order to analyze characteristics of active function bodies by time zone, this study sought to classify roadways according to area of passage through Myeong-dong and thereby analyze functional subjects adjacent to the roadways. As a result, it was found that many functional subjects were located adjacently to high accessible major roadways passing through Myeong-dong, and were also represented primarily by commercial and business functions. On the other hand, it was found that the smaller area of roadways passing through Myeong-dong was associated with the lower frequency of activated functional subjects and the higher activity of recreational and relaxation-related functions. Among others, it is d (cosmetics retailer) function that should be noted specially due to highest accessibility of all adjacent to roadways. Here, it was found that d function had steadily high frequency due to increasing number of Japanese tourists visiting Myeong-dong. However, it was found that active functional subjects were relatively less associated with land value.
Finally, according to field survey on key active areas by time zone, it was found that clothing retailers, restaurants and business offices functioned actively around the crossing of 2 streets, i.e. Myeongdong-gil and Namdaemun-ro in the daytime, while restaurants, cafes and clothing retailers functioned actively in the area surrounded with adjacent streets such as Jungang-gil, Myeongdong 2-gil and Chungmuro 1- and 2-gil in Myeong-dong at midnight.
Myeong-dong has continuously developed in the increasing significance of its role as a central part of Seoul. Historically, a Japanese settlement formed here in the period of colonized Korea under the rule of imperial Japan. Afterwards, it played more important roles as an amusement and commercial area of Seoul, while advanced business functions (e.g. financial industry, business office and service industry) became converged on this area. As a result, it could take its current standings as a critical downtown of Seoul metropolitan city.
Finally, functions of Myeong-dong are strongly with clusters of the same function and cluster of p (restaurant business). And cluster of function subjects are stronger than the horizontal in a vertical structure.
However, downtown is generally characterized by a living space occupied and used by people, not an area simply consisting of commercial and business functions. Based on such nature, it has changing characteristics of activation per time zone. As a result, it is found that Myeong- dong is remarkably characterized by commercial and business functions in the daytime, but there are commercial and amusement-related functions activated immediately before or at midnight. This tendency shows that there are changing characteristics of Myeong-dong as a commercial area. Such a tendency is also well revealed in a pattern of vertical distributions in Myeong-dong, where its low floor sites consist of mainly commercial functions, while its high floor sites consist largely of amusement and business functions. Hence, it is found that key active areas of Myeong-dong move along the time zone.