Im, Jungha; (2024) Situating the social economy in area-based regeneration: Three urban case studies from South Korea. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Thesis_Jungha Im_FN.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 August 2025. Download (13MB)

Abstract

The recent low-growth trend and socio-demographic changes in South Korea have shown limitations of the traditional state-led and market-driven urban development approaches. The socioeconomic implication has been further evident in inner-city areas across the country with the rapidly increasing number of vacant properties and the dilapidated living environment because of the decline both in local economic power and population. In response to such shrinking city problems, the Korean government introduced new urban regeneration policies and projects to regenerate declining inner cities. Shifting the urban policy toward an area-based and integrated approach places a significant emphasis on the cooperation between the local authorities and communities to overcome the lack of resources and pursue sustainable and inclusive regeneration processes. In this line of the policy shift, there has been increasing attention to the role of social economy organisations such as social enterprises, community enterprises, and cooperatives as alternative local economic actors as well as social innovators to tackle complex and multifaceted urban problems. Drawing on the concepts of co-production and network governance, this thesis explores how and to what extent social economy actors mobilise local resources and networks while generating socially innovative impacts on area-based regeneration initiatives. The empirical findings from three urban case studies suggest that there could be a more expanded understanding of the social economy in the neighbourhood-level regeneration schemes of Korea, where there is a relatively weak civil society culture. It is argued that social economy organisations play a role in building and mobilising social capital through the processes of community creation based on common aims, co-production of local services and knowledge, and community empowerment based on community leadership. Despite the wide scope of the potential, this thesis also shows multifaceted conflicts and tensions among different sectors and within the social economy sector, which are embedded in the path-dependency of the existing institutional arrangements. Therefore, it emphasises the importance of strategic governance practices such as area-based regeneration projects in which the deeply embedded institutional arrangements could be identified and challenged while creating cracks and moving toward a governance culture for socially innovative practices.

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