Issue Focus

A large portion of Korean urban neighbourhood parks were created as Korean cities were rapidly expanded. In 2018, more than 34% parks were older than 20 years, and 66% were older than 10 years since their creation. In particular in Seoul, the oldest modern city in Korea, the latter is over 91%. Although it is generally seen that parks are better when they get older, in fact a number of problems occur and thus demands for regeneration of park increase when they become older. They are: 1. Needs for fixing or changing park facilities occurs that beyond minor managements and therefore requires major measures. 2. There are low quality parks since its creation owing to the low design skills and not enough available resources then. 3. Change of users’ preference. 4. At the time when the park was created, trees were not planted with thoughtful plan. Therefore, dangerous trees that are prone to strong wind exist. South Korean park policy has focused mainly on creating and expanding quantity of parks rather than regenerating and enhancing quality of parks. Still now, most of resources are allocated to the former, and not many park regeneration cases exist. In order to increase practicality of securing resources for the park regeneration in the era of ‘low growth’ or ‘matured city’ in South Korea, it is necessary to utilise resources of public, private, and community and volunteer sectors all together. In this research, firstly rationale for securing more public funds are presented. Moreover, measures for utilising other relevant public funds in regenerating parks are also suggested. This is followed by measures to attract private investment in park regeneration is examined. Legal institutions and cases in Japan (Park-PFI) and South Korea are reviewed, and then a new model suitable in South Korean institutional environment is presented. Finally, measures to attract resources of the community and volunteer sector is also reviewed.