Zooming in and out of compact city agenda: A multi-scale investigation of compact urban centers

Compact city policy in rapidly developed metropolitan cities increasingly focuses on
balanced urban development. Cities like Seoul attempted to achieve balanced
distribution of livability opportunities by creating effective public transport and multiple
socio-economic hubs at transport nodes across the metropolitan area. This research
aims to develop and test a multi-scale investigation (MSI) as an integrative evaluation
tool for comprehending such a social outcome from compact multi-centered cities. The
MSI framework zooms in and out socio-economic centers at key nodes, holistically
investigating “local service accessibility” and “city-wide connectivity by public
transport”. To test the framework, we examined varied Centers across the Seoul
Metropolitan City, an exemplar of cities experiencing rapid growth and attempting a
compact multi-centered urban development. The MSI analysis showed that at all the
selected Centers, high-level city-wide connectivity was noted while local service
accessibility was not as high as expected due to negative local-scale effects including
limited service and mobility. The differences between varied Centers were noteworthy.
The Central Business Area had a mixed result of the highest city-wide connectivity and
the lowest local accessibility. The District Center had the highest MSI result, owing to
the relatively better local outcomes. The Quarter Center had the lowest MSI result,
indicating its limited role as a hub of the quarter area. Our research indicates that
creating compact urban centers across a city in rapidly developed metropolis does not
necessarily induce distribution of greater livability opportunities. Evaluating social
outcomes requires comprehensive MSI of centers that vary in contexts.