The Nature and Transformation of Marginal Areas : The Case Study of Korea

Abstract

The limit of small area of Korea highly reguires the necessities of development of marginal areas. The future demand of landuse will be fastly increased in response to a high growth of various industries. Therefore, utilization of marginal areas will be not only necessary, but also inevitable from now in Korea. Inter-regional disparity is one of the important problems which we face. The Second National Land Comprehensive Development Plan (1982~1991) presents a balanced growth as one of development policies. For the successful implementation of the policy, marginal areas should be emphasized in depressed regions. In this context, the research on marginal areas has a very significant and important meaning. This research project has two main objectives in the sense of the expectation of research outcomes. One is to diagnose the present reality and transformation process of marginal areas in Korea by defining the concept of, by classifying the pattern of, and by analysing the situation of marginal areas. The other is to help the governments to develop marginal areas by recommending the transformation and development strategy and method of such areas. The overall data of the whole country of Korea on marginal areas will be collected through a documentary investigation; that is, a desk research. This data will give us the fundamentally statistical information which is necessary to develop a types and to identify characteristics of marginal areas in Korea.