Impact of Innovation City Projects on National Balanced Development in South Korea: Identifying Regional Network and Centrality

Innovation City projects, aimed at balanced national development in South Korea, have relocated public institutions from the Seoul metropolitan area to provinces, decentralizing population and economic functions, over the past decade. This study measured changes in regional centrality (the central and local location or hierarchy of objects in a network) at the 14 cities where Innovation City projects were constructed. Commuter Origin-Destination data were analyzed using Rstudio. In the case of connectivity centrality, 13 out of 14 regions saw a rise in centrality values; among them, Busan, Daegu, and Ulsan belong to large cities. This suggests that the impact of Innovation City projects on established metropolitan areas may not be very significant. Five of the 14 projects increased the value of eigenvector centrality, while 10 increased the centrality ranking. This means that the absolute traffic volume of Innovation Cities across the country had increased, while the centrality of areas around these cities declined, suggesting that Innovation Cities should pursue co-prosperity with surrounding areas. In this way, Innovation Cities can have a positive impact on surrounding areas, and positive externalities of relocation projects are maximized. However, such development effects are confined to Innovation City areas, negatively influencing balanced regional development.