Exploring Spatial Distribution of Empty Houses and Vacant Land Due to Population Decrease in Mokpo

인구 감소 현상에 따른 목포시 빈집 및 공지의 공간적 분포 전망

With population losses and stagnant or depressed economies, the local governments embrace shrinkage and accept having a significantly smaller population. Both the initial and ongoing causes of shrinkage hold dramatic effects on the city and its remaining residents. In this context, vacant land increases as an overabundance of unused infrastructure is demolished and municipalities become burdened with increasing maintenance costs of this land. The result is that vacant land often experiences minimal management relative to social norms and have chance to provide a setting for ecological processes with urban rightsizing strategy. Therefore, urban ecosystems undergo major shifts in structure and function. We need to better understand the possibilities of where and how much of houses and land will be abandoned to assist land planners and policymakers to mitigate conflict between optimal ecological and sociological outcomes. This article, therefore, aims to identify distributional characteristics of vacant houses and lands with case study of Mokpo. The study found and verified affecting factors of vacant houses and lands by type through the use of a Maxent model and spatial data that explained housing choice and preference theory. We can predict the vacancies with the spatial variables such as land price, the population ratio over 65, and the distance from security facility. Based on the analysis, the ways of managing housing and land vacancy for sustainable development and ecological restoration method are discussed.