The study is performed to, first, analyze the performance trends of urban-rural consolidation during the duration of 1996-2002 and then to extract the most influential factors underlying those performance trends.
A critical review of previous studies...
The study is performed to, first, analyze the performance trends of urban-rural consolidation during the duration of 1996-2002 and then to extract the most influential factors underlying those performance trends.
A critical review of previous studies provides a clue to establishing the theoretical model developed in the study. In the theoretical model, both internal and external factors are hypothesized to be causally related to the performance of urban-rural consoildation. To test the hypothesis empirical analyses are employed in two ways: an analysis of the performance trends of urban-rural consolidation and a pooled time-series regression analysis for performance factors. Under the asssumption that performance trends and performance factors would represent themselves in quite a different way with regard to the spatial configuration of urban-rural consolidation, two types of configurations, i.e. fully enveloped type and mutually contingent type, are used as an intervening variable in the regression analysis.
Some important findings are drawn from the empirical analyses. There exists a great discrepency between time-serial trends and residents' actual feelings. It is found that there exists a close similarity between fully enveloped and mutually contingent types in the above analyses. This in turn means that the spatial configuration does not exert any influence on creating the difference between time-serial trends and residents' actual feelings. The regression results show that both administrative capability and population size turn out to become the most significant factors in determining the performance of urbal-rural consolidarion.
Several policy implications can be suggested from the study. Considering the importance of administrative capability in determining performance, special attention has to be paid to human development and manpower trainning indispensable to performance improvement. Since population size shows conflicting results with regard to efficiency, we should be very cautious in fixing it depending upon consolidation policy objectives. In relation to consolidation performance, a disproportionate priority to spatial configuration is not required due to its minimal effects not only on the creation of performance difference but also on the identification of performance factors. Some mechanims of public relations are also to be developed to enhance the degree to which residents actually feel and experience the positive effects of urban-rural consolidation. It is added that the area of a consolidated city should be determined depending upon the objective and direction of consolidation policy.