Cultural Policy and Urban Development: Cases in Korea

The urban agenda is shifting in South Korea from a politics of place to one of people. The Korean political paradigm has shifted in the direction of welfare provision, but local government has limited flexibility in implementing a welfare agenda outside of the megacity of Seoul. Even so, innovative local efforts continue in the area of cultural policy, where local government has more flexibility to pursue a coherent agenda with broad benefits, including both ones that embrace development of place and ones that transcend the prior association of cultural policy with place to deliver welfare benefits to people through cultural spending. This study uses pooled data from more than 200 local governments in South Korea across five years to investigate the factors involved in urban development. On the basis of the results in the area of municipal and district-level cultural spending, a number of cities and districts are identified where cultural spending has a clear relationship with local development according to different measures. This study will explain the dynamics of a number of these creative local efforts.