The main purpose of the paper is to evaluate the economic base of the five new towns in the Capital Region in Korea. For this, some issues surrounding the desirable economic base of a city have been discussed. It has been suggested that the economic s...
The main purpose of the paper is to evaluate the economic base of the five new towns in the Capital Region in Korea. For this, some issues surrounding the desirable economic base of a city have been discussed. It has been suggested that the economic self-reliance ratio can be measured conceptually in terms of the selfreliance ratio of both employment and facilities.
The paper revealed that the self-reliance ratio of employment of the five new towns is relatively low compared not only to the other old cities in the Seoul Metropolitan Area but also to the other new towns in Europe. However, the self-reliance ratio of facilities for daily life turns out to be relatively high.
These results have been mainly caused by the current strict regional policy to restrict population increase in the Capital Region. The policy does not allow to establish the industrial complex for manufacturing.
Finally the paper suggests that some policy changes are needed to develop the new towns with a more competitive economic base even in the Capital Region in other to effectively face the changing socio-economic environments.