Abstract
Citizen participation or resident participation is perceived as an effective way to correspond to the diverse urban problems, especially in the area of residential environment improvement projects and community activities. As the leading city of the Honam region and a core middle city leading the development of the southwestern region, Gwangju city is planning and under-developing new Housing Complexes and Urban Renewal Projects. The purpose of this study is to identify the perception of Gwangju citizens on resident participation in community activities to suggest diverse strategies for improving quality of citizen's life and making better living environment. For the research purpose, 1,380 questionnaires were distributed to the Gwangju citizens who live in 5 autonomous districts -Dong-gu, Seo-gu, Nam-gu, Buk-gu, and Gwangsan-gu- and 601 were used in data analysis. Although citizens in Dong-gu showed the lowest settlement consciousness, they required the highest level of need for resident self-help activities. Contrastingly, Seo-gu showed the highest level of settlement consciousness and the lowest need for resident self-help activities. Based on the results, high quality community facility should be provided to promote residential satisfaction and consciousness of residential participation and self-help activity must be improved. And also, diverse strategies for resident participation including development of resident education programs and search for regional resources should be covered in further research.
