Urban Sprawl, Reckless Development, and Smart Growth Policy: Korean Case Study on Yongin City

The paper exemplifies the causes and phenomena, the problems and policy responses to the reckless urban fringe development in Korea. Housing shortages and saturation of urban land in Seoul were push factors that encouraged population dispersion away from Seoul. As a result, the population of Yongin, located south of the Seoul metropolitan region, has increased from 183,000 in 1992 to 702,000 in 2005. Land development in Yongin, particularly by private companies, was characterized as small-sized, scattered and unplanned, spreading out around existing built areas and arterial roads. Urban sprawl in Yongin destroyed much of the natural and agricultural environment. After the central government announced the comprehensive measures against urban sprawl 2000, Yongin started to create an urban planning system, and established the Urban Basic Plan in 2001 toward the year of 2016, which was focused on preventing reckless development and urban sprawl. After the enactment of the Act on Planning and Use of National Territoy in 2002, Yongin revised the City Basic Plan toward the year of 2020.