Housing is so an essential factor in everyday life that residential area is said to be important to understand urban structure. It is residential area that takes the largest portion of the urban area as well as that carries out social reproduction. D...
Housing is so an essential factor in everyday life that residential area is said to be important to understand urban structure. It is residential area that takes the largest portion of the urban area as well as that carries out social reproduction. Despite various attributes of residential area in reflection of regional characteristics, previous studies about residential area in Korea have disregarded the sub-housing markets, but only dealing with whole urban area as an unit of analysis. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the residential areas at sub-metropolitan level, focusing on sub-housing markets in Incheon as a study area, in terms of their spatial characteristics and structure.
The development of residential areas in Incheon has been initiated around the concession lands by foreign countries especially China and Japan, since the open port era in late 19th century. Before the 1980s, the residential areas showed the dominant housing pattern of single detached houses, which revealed strong influence from Land Readjustment Projects implemented in Japanese colonial period, However, after the 1980s, the residential areas have shifted towards strong features of apartment housing complex introduced by Land Development Projects, continuously expanded furthermore thanks to policies of Incheon Free Economic Zone and the second phase New Town Development plan for Seoul Metropolitan Region.
The housing markets of Incheon showed more dynamic features which were revealed by more vigorous housing supply as well as by more wide range of housing price variation both in comparison to national average. The spatial distribution pattern of housing type showed more concentration pattern of old single detached houses and aged population around old city center and its surrounding areas rather than other inner city areas. The residential development in Incheon has expanded to north-south direction from old city center, filling in some residential areas with apartment complexes, while multiplex and row houses were intermingly existed in the residential areas between apartment dominant residental areas.
In terms of housing type and housing ownership. higher percentage of private ownership was shown in the apartment housing whereas higher percentage of rented houses, such as Cheonse and monthly base rent house, were shown in the newly developed residential areas. Analysis of total housing ownership tells that the rate of housing ownership has slightly increased than before but not in a high rate. Moreover, housing ownership shows rather decreased tendency if recalculating past rate into present one throughout standardization divided by age. Especially, for younger generations, the rate of housing ownership was reduced so far.
As a result of the factor analysis for understanding the characteristics of housing and household in a residential area, five factors were drawn out. The first factor accounted for attributes of single detached houses resided by aged population. The second factor could explain attributes of multiplex houses occupied by younger generation aged between 20s and 30s on monthly rental base. The third factor accounted for attributes of newly constructed apartments, and the fourth factor revealed attributes of used housing. The fifth factor reflected the dominant characteristics of row houses leased by.
The cluster analysis using factor score from factor analysis helped to identify five separate homogeneous residential areas in Incheon. Furthermore, eight sub-housing markets were drawn out in consideration of geographic proximity and results of cluster analysis in Incheon as follows:
(1) Citywide sub-housing market of dominant apartment housing with private ownership
(2) Cheongna sub-housing market of dominant apartment housing with yearly lease
(3) Old city center sub-housing market of dominant apartment housing mixed with single detached housing
(4) Citywide sub-housing market of dominant single detached housing with aging population
(5) Citywide sub-housing market of dominant multiplex housing on monthly rental base
(6) Songdo and Nonhyun sub-housing market of dominant apartment housing on monthly rental base
(7) Yeongjongdo sub-housing market of dominant apartment housing with yearly lease
(8) Yongyu sub-housing market of dominant single detached housing with private ownership
The third factor showing attributes of newly constructed apartment was not reflected in the ‘Citywide sub-housing market of dominant apartment housing with private ownership’ and ‘Old city center sub-housing market’ because both areas showed relatively long history of construction in spite of their high percentage of apartment housing. However, other sub-housing markets including Cheongna sub-housing market and Songdo and Nonhyun sub-housing market reflected the strong contribution of the third factor showing attributes of newly constructed apartment. The first factor showing attributes of single detached houses with aged population was strongly revealed in the ‘Old city center sub-housing market’, while the third factor was not reflected enough due to their old construction age.
Examining the influence of each factors from factor analysis can reflect the characteristics of each sub-housing marekt in Incheon, For instance, the first factor showing attributes of single detached houses resided by aged people was so strongly reflected in both ‘Citywide sub-housing market of dominant single detached housing with aging population’ and ‘Yongyu sub-housing market’. The second factor showing attributes of multiplex houses occupied by younger generation was strongly reflected in ‘Citywide sub-housing market of dominant multiplex housing on monthly rental base’. The second factor and third factor was strongly reflected in the ‘Songdo and Nonhyun sub-housing market’ whereas the second, the third and the firth factor were considerably reflected in the ‘Yeongjongdo sub-housing market’.
There were also regional differences between divided sub-housing markets in Incheon. For example, both ‘Old city center sub-housing market’ and ‘Citywide sub-housing market of dominant single detached housing with aging population’ have more aged population, high ratio of single detached houses, old houses constructed over 30 years, and rent without deposit than any other sub-housing markets. Also they showed lowest housing price and amount of yearly lease.
Administrative units (Dong), belonging to those sub-housing markets have shown higher ratio of poor households below minimum dwelling standard than others. Also the physical condition was so deteriorated in these residential areas. However, sub-housing markets with dominant apartment housing showed quite reversed tendency of physical conditions, implying dual structure of urban housing markets in Incheon .