KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study empirically examined the differentiated impacts of the 2016 opening of the SRT Honam Line on station-area development. Using administrative-district data from 2014 to 2019, K-means clustering and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis identified five station types: growth, bedroom-town, economic-center, decline, and status-quo. Growth areas, concentrated in Suseo and Dongtan, exhibited higher business survival rates and longer operational lifespans, while decline areas near Jeongeup and Mokpo experienced concentrated short-term closure risks. Stations adjacent to the Seoul metropolitan area or designated as new towns demonstrated concurrent population and business growth, whereas traditional urban centers with weaker structural foundations failed to leverage improved accessibility for economic expansion. The findings indicate that transport infrastructure provision alone does not determine station-area performance. Sustainable development requires the synergistic interaction of land-use strategies, industrial diversity, place-making initiatives, and governance systems. Region-specific policy interventions reflecting initial conditions are essential to ensure long-term and balanced diffusion of infrastructure benefits.

This study aims to analyze the characteristics of existing new town evaluation studies through a systematic literature review from a planning evaluation perspective. Based on this analysis, it also examines the achievements and limitations of such evaluations. To this end, 57 publications were selected as the analytical sample from among previous studies that evaluated the first and second new towns. Analytical criteria were then established to systematically examine research trends, the characteristics of the evaluation methods and indicators, the timing of evaluation, and the sectoral characteristics of the evaluations. The results indicated that new town evaluations conducted to date exhibit several limitations. First, research has largely concentrated on government-led evaluations and the first new towns. Second, evaluations tend to rely predominantly on either qualitative or quantitative approaches, or to focus on short-term assessments with evaluation periods of less than five years. Third, the scope of evaluation has been concentrated mainly on urban functions and structure, urban and residential environments, and policy and planning sectors. Fourth, evaluations that address emerging issues such as the aging of new towns and the environmental impacts of urban development have not yet been sufficiently undertaken despite the growing discussion surrounding these topics.

As monocentric concentration in the Seoul Metropolitan Area has intensified, socioeconomic challenges such as widening interregional economic disparities and population outflows have persisted. However, Much of the existing studies have concluded that urban primacy in Korea is being mitigated based on population size criteria, which diverges from the perceived reality of metropolitan concentration. Accordingly, this study analyzes the long-term trajectory of urban primacy in Korea from 1975 to 2025 based on functional urban areas, and empirically examines the impact of urban primacy on per capita GDP through international panel regression analysis covering 143 countries over the period 1975 to 2020. The analysis reveals that Korea's urban primacy has been structurally intensified even after the completion of urbanization. Furthermore, the size gap between the first city (the Seoul metropolitan area) and the second-third cities (Busan and Daegu metropolitan areas), as well as the expanding population share of the first city, were confirmed to have significant negative effects on national economic performance. This suggests that excessive urban primacy operates as a constraint on national growth.