Impact of Highway Construction on Internal Migration: A Korea Perspective

Transportation facilities in the classical migration model expand the scale of population movement by reducing the physical distance and costs of travel between regions. This study empirically analyzes the effect of population inflow into a region near a highway construction using a migration model. The purpose was to examine whether large-scale transportation infrastructure such as highways contributes to the growth and balanced development of the connected regions. Four metropolitan transport-type and commuter transport-type highway routes constructed in South Korea after 2000 were used as study subjects. The results show that population inflow occurred in the region where commuter transport-type highways were constructed. However, no effect was observed in regions where metropolitan transport-type highways were constructed. The reason for these unique results is that factors affecting migration include not only transit facilities, but also parameters such as economic factors, housing, and amenities. Moreover, the findings show that the impact of population inflow is affected by the geographical characteristics of the highway construction areas and city size.