Urban regeneration has been issued to tackle the city decline problem of down town and inner city. Although the city as a whole had been often suffered from economic decline, many regeneration projects in European countries have been implemented by financial supports of central/local government. There is no exception in Korea for revitalization of the declined city or districts. However, physical development and management for the revitalization has still resulted in such social and economic problems as break of community, social exclusion, and stagnating market areas. So far, many urban policies has been failed and the financial supports were cancelled because they had not immediately responded to social /economic change and demands.
In this regard, urban policies are required to consider how to manage for the city as a whole in terms of social, economic, and cultural regeneration. Also new trends toward urban planning and management tend to explore urban compactness and sustainability focused on empowerment, coordination and partnership of users or institutions. In particular, we have accept new concepts such an emerging trend such as new urbanism, new village, smart growth, compact city, creative city, and healthy/safe city or community. Corresponding to this trend, we need a new paradigm in urban management and policy. This is urban regeneration/renaissance project based on urban sustainability and compactness.
From early time, developed countries have experienced in urban decline and still are struggling to the revitalize such industrial or market areas as well as residential community. So far, we have seen successful examples in European countries and applied the techniques and policies to us learning from the cases.
Non-the-less, it is evident that our social backgrounds are different from those of western countries which had experienced in severe downtown decline and selectively induced people to inner city (choice) in terms of gentrification or compact city. In order to tackle the urban/downtown decline problems, recently, we have just started to apply the regeneration policies being supported by governments. Now we need not to move out and should be stay in inner city experiencing in population reduction in low-birth and aging society. This implies "essential" urban regeneration to respond to social, economic, and cultural regeneration much emphasized on inner city management as a new paradigm.