“Development Strategies for Regional Hub Small and Medium-Sized Cities Must Differ by Industry, Transportation, Tourism and Education”

[Financial News] A proposal has called for differentiated development strategies in industry, transportation, tourism and education to foster regional hub small and medium-sized cities, as conditions vary from one city to another.
The Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements said on the 29th that a research team led by BANG SEOLAH, an associate research fellow at the Center for Balanced Growth Support, had published a Land Policy Brief titled “Development Directions for Regional Hub Small and Medium-Sized Cities for Balanced National Growth.”
The research team defined non-metropolitan city jurisdictions with populations below 500,000 as regional small and medium-sized cities. It identified 42 such cities, selected 14 as hub-city cases, and analyzed their population characteristics and core functions over the five-year period from 2020 to 2024.
The team assessed that small and medium-sized cities should serve as “population dams” against population decline and slow growth outside the Seoul metropolitan area, as well as buffers against spatial polarization, by functioning as “intermediate cities” between large cities and rural areas. However, it pointed out that these cities currently fall into a policy blind spot, limiting their ability to perform their functions within the national spatial hierarchy.
The analysis found that the 14 small and medium-sized cities recorded an average annual population growth rate of -0.62% over the five-year period, with populations declining in 12 cities, excluding Chuncheon and Wonju. The decreases were particularly steep in Mokpo (-1.65%), Jeongeup (-1.45%) and Andong (-0.80%). By age group, net outflows emerged from childhood through the later school years. Among young adults, the cities split into those where the population in their 20s and 30s continued to decline—Geoje, Andong, Mokpo, Jeongeup and Gunsan—and those where a sharp drop in the early 20s was followed by a rebound from inflows in the 30s—Jinju, Pohang, Chungju, Suncheon, Gangneung and Sokcho. Chuncheon and Wonju maintained relatively consistent net inflows throughout early adulthood.
Conditions also varied significantly by sector. The 14 cities are traditional industrial hubs, accounting for 32.6% of the nation's shipbuilding workers and 19.5% of its steel-industry workers, but their foundations in advanced industries such as semiconductors and displays were weak. Most had wide-area transportation networks, including KTX, but lacked sufficient intra-city public transportation linking old city centers, industrial complexes and innovation cities. They had abundant tourism resources and significant potential, yet their infrastructure, accommodations and local brand recognition were underdeveloped. In education, universities in Jinju, Pohang, Mokpo and Suncheon served as regional education hubs, creating opportunities to connect with policies such as the Glocal University 30 initiative.
Accordingly, the research team proposed the following sector-specific development measures: creating a virtuous cycle of industry, employment and population by specializing in industries in which each region has a comparative advantage and linking them to national strategic industries; establishing an integrated transportation system within small and medium-sized city regions and expanding public transportation connecting industry, education and tourism; strengthening regional tourism hub functions and combining stay-based tourism with local content; and concentrating education and research functions around universities while building clusters linked to innovation hubs.
The research team emphasized, “Regional hub small and medium-sized cities are a spatial strategy for creating a growth structure for entire small and medium-sized city regions, including surrounding cities and counties, rather than a policy aimed at developing a single city. Because conditions in industry, transportation, tourism and education differ from city to city, differentiated development strategies are needed for each sector.”

[email protected] Jeong Gyeong-su Reporter