Analysis of Budget Trends related to Creation of Urban Park in Seoul - Focusing on Budgetary Document -

Abstract

Urban parks are important spaces of ecological and socio-cultural value to citizens who lead busy lives in increasingly complex and densely populated megalopolises. However, creating and maintaining city parks takes the will of the authorities to put it into practice and provide the attendant financial resources. That explains why we are focused on the budget aspects for the Seoul Metropolitan City in relation to creating park spaces. Our findings were as follows: 1) The overall city budget has steadily increased, but the budget allocated to Green Seoul Bureau and new park development has decreased since 2011. 2) As for elected officials, the budget grew during the time of the first, third, and fourth mayors as the creation of parks was considered to be a major priority, but after the sixth popularly elected mayor, the budget was sharply cut.3) About 10% of the budget was allocated to the parks managed by the self-governing districts, compared to the ones under the direct management of the city. Furthermore, the analysis of the average annual budget for each park and how long (in terms of year) the budget for each park is invested showed that it was classified into three different types of category. Local governments adhere to the principle that their budget must be compiled and expended for a single year, which makes it hard to establish and push ahead with a long-term plan. However, as parks and green areas should not be approached from a short-term perspective for performance but from a long-term perspective, securing the consistent amount of budget is essential. This study has significance in that it attempted to analyze the budget issues related to parks, which has not been studied in depth so far, but the subject in this paper was limited to the budget for Green Seoul Bureau. Therefore, further research is needed because the parks managed by the self-governing districts were not considered.

Study on the Redevelopment of the Hangang River Waterfront from an Urban Resilience Perspective

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“…Seoul Hangang Park Headquarters manages the Hangang riverfront under the Seoul Metropolitan City, and its primary funding source depends on collecting taxes. According to Ko's research, even if the budget of Seoul continued to increase, the budget for park creation and management would not increase because the budget for open space creation and management allocated by the government is very limited [31]. This is because budgeting priorities differ according to the main policies of the governments that change every four years.…”