Describing Changes in the Built Environment of Shrinking Cities: Case Study of Incheon, South Korea

Abstract

In the early 2000s, nearly 30% of South Korean cities reportedly shrunk in terms of population, number of enterprises, and property disinvestment. Although many researchers have already documented socioeconomic changes linked with shrinking cities, little is known about how changes in a neighborhood’s built environment influence the process of shrinking within a city’s local context. Here, a neighborhood called Songhyun-dong in Incheon, which was previously one of the busiest mixed-use retail neighborhoods in Korea, was empirically documented through nontechnical analyses of urban-form data for the years of 1937, 1985, 1995, and 2013. It was discovered that urban planners’ institutional response to urban shrinkage, such as development of extensive transport infrastructure and imposition of a rigid gridiron layout, failed to contribute to the recovery of the shrinking neighborhood. The resultant loss of securely-enclosed residential areas and adaptable market-space characteristics has amplified the downward spiral of the shrinking process.