While industrial society has changed to knowledge-based society around the world, modern society has entered into aging society because of job insecurity, prolongation of average life expectancy, retirement of baby boom generation and decrease in the birth-rate. The study focuses on diverse urban development projects and in particular application of a concept of healthy city to communities in consideration of environmental and cultural factors, In order to apply and realize ‘the healthy city’ concept, it is essential to improve urban environment for public health promotion as well as personal health promotion. Also, planning paradigms for health should be suggested by health policy-making, which actively connects to development strategies in various categories in regional and urban planning.
Consequently, the ultimate goals of this study are both to analyze and evaluate urban functions and locational environment in order to construct higher level of health clusters and private-public health leisure towns, in which contains health infrastructure such as hospitals, parks, sport centers as well as elderly housing the to prepare low birth and aging society for the future. In particular, this study proposes a development model for the health clusters with an intensive case study for Geoje city exploring locational advantages in Gyeongnam Province.
In addition, this study suggests enforcement of partnership and governance leading to collaborative planning based on active participation of experts and citizens in efficient land use and facility location for revitalization of local cities. In order to achieve the objectives, this study are divided into six chapters. Each chapter consists of some processes and stages either to analysis current situations and problems or to identify external findings exploring diverse alternatives.
The first chapter demonstrates the background, the purpose, the scope and method for this study. It explains theoretical backgrounds about the low birth and aging society emphasized on ‘the importance of health’ and demonstrates the needs of health clusters in Korea. The second chapter demonstrates the related studies both to analyse the factors of locational environment and to suggest healthy city model. For this study, policy changes referred to social transition upon low-birth and aging society are reviewed with theoretical backgrounds of welfare services. Also, environmental factors for the elderly, women, and the handicapped/the deprived are under-pined in this study. In addition, the planning and development paradigms of health cities were reviewed with rapid changes of medical/health environment affected to the location factors. Also, theoretical rationales to an integrated approach toward public health and urban planning are identified in this study. Base on these factors, we explores the past and the present studies to create new health clusters to implement the policies.
The third chapter analyzes general situations and statistics for the case study with existing studies on health city and health clusters. Especially, it proposes the necessity for health cluster projects and implementation propelling requirement in order to set indicators and bases.
The fourth chapter carries out the demands and the feasibility analysis as basic projects for construction of healthy clusters. The demands are expected to be much increased due to improved accessibility to Pusan metropolitan area by recently constructed Geo-ga Bridge. This study explores the possibility of new dimension of healthy cluster location and analyzes locational environment in Geoje City.
The fifth chapter implements the priority analysis for location analysis of the healthy cluster candidate sites by an AHP analysis method. It proposes the validity as healthy cluster location through an evaluation analysis of intended goals and indicators. In this chapter, some suggestions are given: saving medical expenses, improving financial affairs of health insurance, the senior total care system and effect of senior welfare measures.
The sixth chapter suggests more detailed alternatives to develop the healthy clusters and proposes a healthy cluster model. In this chapter, the priority of the healthy cluster projects is evaluated and divided into three steps: physical environment, health-medical treatment, culture-sports and natural environment.
In conclusion, urban function and locational environment are evaluated and suggested to improve physical environment. Also, governance system with interests and active participation of residents in prioritizing progression of project.