Regionalism as a New Motif for Regional Planning in Korea

Abstract

Regional development in Korea today is a political necessity. It is to secure continuing political supports for further national economic development on one hamd and on the other, to meet the ever increasing demands for more equitable shares of the development pie. In a society like Korea where 76% of the population believe that they have now achieved "middle class" status, support for futher growth and demand for equitable share are of two sides of a coin. The societal context of persuasion for development ,planning is being shifted from mere rationality -the most efficient means to unquestioned ends- to participatory opportunities. Under such circumstances, "support generally takes the form of agreement not to resist implementation if a plan recognizes or furthers the ends of the affected groups." (Richard Warren Smith, 1973, pp.277-278) And therefore, the scope and strength of political support and the equity of distribution are mutually reinforcing. If indeed regional development is to be effective as a means to manage the distribution process in Korea, it must now be organized as a process of participatory planning. Politicizing development process is often resisted for a very tenable reason of maintaining economic and technical efficiency of development programs, especially so in an early stage when growth is deemed urgent. Sooner or later, however, time comes when the gap between the growing modern sector and the forgotten traditional sector of economy becomes starkly visible and it is no longer tolerated as mere "growing pain" but begins to settle in as structural pattern of the society. The conventional response to such a disparity has been merely to geographically decentralize "industrial locations" of the growing modern sectors over a wider surface of the nation. And yet, since the technology of. modern sector industries is becoming more "footloose" and even "internationalizing," physical locations of new factories and plants do not necessarily guarantee "communalization" of distributive process. (Friedmann and Weaver, 1977, p.358)