Social minorities such as foreign migrants, urban poor, handicapped people, youths and women have been excluded from various opportunities in the city, and this has become a social problem. In the metropolitan area, the "working poor" who can not esc ...
Social minorities such as foreign migrants, urban poor, handicapped people, youths and women have been excluded from various opportunities in the city, and this has become a social problem. In the metropolitan area, the "working poor" who can not escape from poverty even through their hard work has emerged, along with the labor market polarization problem. In addition, as the residential areas of the urban poor are gradually being separated from the middle class, mutual exchange and dependence are decreasing, and prejudice against the socially weak people such as the disabled and single parent families are obstacles to social integration. Against this backdrop, the concept of 'inclusive city' as a city vision for social integration has been introduced by international organizations such as UN Habitat and civic organizations, and strategies for its implementation are being discussed. However, the academic discussion on this concept has not yet matured, so its meaning is not clear and it has not been specified enough to be applied in practice. In this context, this study aims to establish the concept of 'inclusive city' as a city vision to overcome the discrimination and exclusion of the socially weak. It also aims to develop an indicator system to measure the inclusivity of cities based on this concept and apply it to real cities in Korea in order to propose a strategy for enhancing the inclusivity of cities.
For these purposes, we first critically reviewed the literature and existing studies related to social exclusion and integration in cities, and established the concept of inclusive city by collecting opinions from experts in related fields. This study defines the inclusive city as "a place with spatial openness where all inhabitants have the capacity to live a basic life as a member of society, and are both formally and informally interdependent in all areas of life and are not excluded from various decision-making processes and various activities of civil society". And this concept is explained in four dimensions: capacity building, interdependence, participation, and spatial openness. Based on this concept, we have developed the 'Urban inclusiveness indicators system (UIIS)' which will be used to measure the degree of inclusion in actual Korean cities. To do this, we used extensive literature review, and expert advice, and analyzed the fitness and importance of related indicators. Considering the easiness of data collection and validity for indicators, we construct the UIIS consisting of 33 indicators which correspond to the four dimensions and 11 components constituting the concept of the inclusive city.
We verify the feasibility of the indicator system by actually applying it to Korean cities and evaluating their inclusivity, and also figure out their characteristics in terms of the inclusion. A total of 94 cities and counties, including metropolitan cities, small and medium cities, and rural areas, are surveyed and indexed. The results of the analysis show that Korean cities can be classified into three types of inclusion: The first type is mainly for large cities, where the residents' capacity building basis is strong and the people's participation is active, while the housing price is high and the sense of community is low at the local level. The second type is mainly for small and midium cities, where the scores for the spatial openness dimension are high and the scores for the other dimensions are intermediate. This is interpreted as a result of the affordable housing prices of small and medium cities around large cities and the spread of housing complexes through the development of public rental housing and urban development. The third type is mainly for rural areas, where the residents have a high level of sense of community and social reciprocity, and low price of housing. Thus it is highly scored in the dimensions of interdependence and spatial openness. On the other hand, the scores on capacity building and participation level are low, which shows overall contrast with the first type. Based on the analysis of this information, urban typology, and analysis of characteristics by type, we propose a policy direction for increasing the inclusivity of cities in Korea.
This study is meaningful in that it provides not only the theoretical basis for the follow-up studies by establishing the elusive concept of inclusive city, but also a basic practical data for making future inclusive urban strategies by evaluating the inclusivity of real cities in Korea. In addition, it can be used as a data for establishing policies for promoting social integration and inclusion in accordance with the characteristics of individual cities, in the current situation where the problem of social polarization and exclusion becomes severe in cities.