University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2015 Evaluating the Performance of the Greenbelt Policy for Present and Future Urban Growth Management and Environmental Protection: A Case Study in the Seoul Metropolitan Area of South Korea Albert Tonghoon Han University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation Han, Albert Tonghoon, "Evaluating the Performance of the Greenbelt Policy for Present and Future Urban Growth Management and Environmental Protection: A Case Study in the Seoul Metropolitan Area of South Korea" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1755. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1755 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1755 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Evaluating the Performance of the Greenbelt Policy for Present and Future Urban Growth Management and Environmental Protection: A Case Study in the Seoul Metropolitan Area of South Korea Abstract This dissertation evaluates the effects of relaxing the growth management tool known as the greenbelt policy in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) of South Korea. The policy effect is measured by employing a series of spatial and statistical analyses on four urban sprawl measurement criteria: 1) physical containment, 2) housing affordability, 3) community service provision costs, and 4) commuting costs. Based on the analyses, I concluded that as a result of the greenbelt relaxation, the SMA has lost substantial amounts of farmland, forestland, pastureland, and wetlands to development between 1990 and 2010. Despite the considerable land consumption, not much land fragmentation has occurred, meaning that the new developments took place near the existing built-up areas, especially near the satellite cities and New Towns outside the greenbelt. The greenbelt relaxation did contribute to mitigating the land price and property value increases throughout the SMA compared to the urban core in Seoul. Although the relaxation guided new developments inside the greenbelt and lowered the tax collection and expenditure outside the greenbelt, the community service costs are expected to be higher outside the greenbelt because more developments continued to happen outside the greenbelt regardless of the relaxation policy. The commuting destination analysis and the mode share statistics showed that the SMA as a whole is facing substantial transportation challenges in both cost and level of service. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group City & Regional Planning First Advisor Thomas L. Daniels Keywords Difference-in-Differences, GIS, Greenbelt, Growth Management, Policy Evaluation, Seoul Subject Categories Urban, Community and Regional Planning | Urban Studies and Planning This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1755 EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE GREENBELT POLICY FOR PRESENT AND FUTURE URBAN GROWTH MANAGEMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION A CASE STUDY IN THE SEOUL METROPOLITAN AREA OF SOUTH KOREA Albert T. Han A DISSERTATION in City & Regional Planning Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Supervisor of Dissertation Signature_________________ Thomas L. Daniels Professor of City and Regional Planning Graduate Group Chairperson Signature_________________ Eugenie L. Birch Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Education & Research Dissertation Committee Thomas L. Daniels, Professor of City & Regional Planning John D. Landis, Crossways Professor of City & Regional Planning David Hsu, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Thomas L. Daniels, for the invaluable guidance and mentorship he provided to me, all the way from when I first joined the doctoral program in the City and Regional Planning, through to completion of this degree. Dr. Daniels’ intellectual heft has inspired me to pursue my academic career in the field of Land Use and Environmental Planning and Urban Growth Management. I am truly fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him. I would also like to thank Dr. John D. Landis for his insightful guidance and thought-provoking suggestions that shaped my research design and methods. I would also like to thank Dr. David Hsu for his support and guidance he has given me all these years. Working with him on various research projects nurtured my research skills that made it possible to complete my dissertation research. In a similar vein, I’d like to thank Dr. Ting Meng for her contribution to my intellectual growth during our research collaboration. I am very grateful to Dr. Eugenie L. Birch for her support and guidance in getting my graduate career started on the right foot and providing me with the foundation for becoming a scholar Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my parents – Sang-Yun Han and Qui-Yong Oh, my little brother – Jung-Hoon Han, and my soon-to-be wife – Heera Lee for their support, encouragement, quite patience and unwavering love which were undeniably the bedrock upon which the past three and a half years of my life have been built. ii ABSTRACT Evaluating the Performance of the Greenbelt Policy for Present and Future Urban Growth Management and Environmental Protection A Case Study in the Seoul Metropolitan Area of South Korea Albert T. Han Thomas L. Daniels This dissertation evaluates the effects of relaxing the growth management tool known as the greenbelt policy in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) of South Korea. The policy effect is measured by employing a series of spatial and statistical analyses on four urban sprawl measurement criteria: 1) physical containment, 2) housing affordability, 3) community service provision costs, and 4) commuting costs. Based on the analyses, I concluded that as a result of the greenbelt relaxation, the SMA has lost substantial amounts of farmland, forestland, pastureland, and wetlands to development between 1990 and 2010. Despite the considerable land consumption, not much land fragmentation has occurred, meaning that the new developments took place near the existing built-up areas, especially near the satellite cities and New Towns outside the greenbelt. The greenbelt relaxation did contribute to mitigating the land price and property value increases throughout the SMA compared to the urban core in Seoul. Although the relaxation guided new developments inside the greenbelt and lowered the tax collection and expenditure outside the greenbelt, the community service costs are expected to be higher outside the greenbelt because more developments continued to happen outside the greenbelt regardless of the relaxation policy. The commuting destination analysis and the mode share statistics showed that the SMA as a whole is facing substantial transportation challenges in both cost and level of service. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT ......................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................... vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1 1.1. Problem Statement ........................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Study Area ........................................................................................................................................ 5 1.3. Research Gaps and Research Question .......................................................................................... 7 1.4. Research Design and Hypotheses .................................................................................................. 10 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 15 2.1. Comparative Case Study of Greenbelts around the World .............................................................. 15 1. The United Kingdom ........................................................................................................................ 15 2. Canada .............................................................................................................................................. 19 3. Australia ........................................................................................................................................... 22 4. The United States ............................................................................................................................. 26 5. South Korea ...................................................................................................................................... 29 2.2. Common and Unique Greenbelt Challenges .....................................................................................