An Empirical Study on the Waterfront Redevelopment in Port City

항만의 재개발에 관한 실증 연구

Waterfront redevelopment is an element in the process of inner-city regeneration now widespread in many ports of the world. Academic interest in the processes involved has yielded a literature biased towards specific locations rather than towards the analysis of processes and issues. The redevelopment of urban waterfronts does not, of course, occur exclusively in port cities but is found as a continuous process in most places where settlement and water are juxtaposed, whether or not commercial port activity is or was present. Port cities, however, as a result of the concentration and juxtaposition of urban and maritime influences, generally present the major issues involved in waterfront redevelopment most clearly. In this context, the general aim is to explore Korean dimensions of waterfront redevelopment in a range of port cities in a context of inner-urban renewal; and a specific objective is to examine the views of decision-makers in Korean port cities on the processes involved by a questionnaire method. The focus is on comparative strategies, and in particular upon the factors affecting the balance between social goals and commercial interests. To test the response of four categories of decision-makers in Korean port cities on a number of issues perceived as underpinning the processes involved in waterfront redevelopment, four catergories of respondents-port authority representatives(PO), urban planners(UP), port specialists(PS) and city-government official(GO)-were asked to fill in a questionnaire form. In three out of ten cases, the overall result broadly confirmed the a priori expectation; in six cases the confirmation was partial; and in one other the view of respondent was generally contrary to those anticipated. In many, but by no means all, cases there was substantial agreement between the four categories of respondents, but the range of scores was generally much wider than expected.