Balanced regional development has been at the top of the South Korean
political agenda for more than three decades, Despite implementing var
ious policy measures, industrial development has been heavily weighted
towards the Seoul metropolitan area and this has fuelled a substantia
l level of population growth with associated physical and social probl
ems. Hard planning and rigid development zoning failed to adequately a
ddress this issue and more recently, the South Korean government has l
ooked at ways of relaxing planning control whilst providing new incent
ives and disincentives for manufacturing firms in a fresh attempt to c
lose regional and intra-regional economic disparities. This paper expl
ores the government's changing strategy, paying particular attention t
o industrial parks as the main vehicle carrying forward the policy of
decentralisation. It examines the failure of past measures and conside
rs the potential that more recent strategies may offer for reshaping t
he economic and social structure of both the Capital region and the wh
ole of South Korea. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved
.