Recommendations for the Improved Urban Park Policy in Gyeonggi Province through Analyzing Designation and Creation Rationale
This study aims at providing basic policy materials to build a basis for supplying and creating urban parks balanced across Gyeonggi province and improving the quality of life of residents through, an extensive analysis of all city parks in cities/counties in Gyeonggi province. The study result showed that first, the number of parks is only 40% of the adequate number and, thus, accessibility of Gyeonggi province residents to parks in neighborhoods is significantly low. Second, a proportion of park types in children's park, neighborhood park, urban nature park is 67% : 24% : 2%, which is adequate in Gyeonggi province as a whole. Third, as for the area of parks per resident, the area of designated park is 17.7m2/person, which is over three times of legal requirement in urban planning area (6m2/person). However, created park area is only 5.6m2/person, which fails to meet the legal requirement. Fourth, when park area of each city was compared, the areas varied significantly across cities. The Gyeonggi provincial government needs to secure funds aggressively and accelerate setting up and expanding facilities at designated parks located within the current urban areas. The findings from this study should be used as important materials when developing supply & demand policies for urban parks in Gyeonggi province. The study implicates that independent park policies and management by each city/county as well as the establishment and management of a comprehensive park policy at a provincial level is significantly important.