A Study on the Impact of Tactical Urbanism Applied in Seoul on Change in Perception of Placeness

Recent urban regeneration is being carried out as integrated regeneration including social, cultural, and economic aspects as well as the physical improvement of old spaces based on resident participation for continuous management and maintenance of cities. However, the long-term project method has the disadvantage that it is difficult to flexibly cope with changing situations. Tactical Urbanism is being applied as a tool for overcoming the limitations of existing urban planning methods and achieving the goal while flexibly responding to urban regeneration issues. Urban events using Tactical Urbanism encourage social interest and visits through unique concepts and influence the vitality and diversity of cities. Moreover, it plays a positive role in the improvement of stereotyped urban landscapes and placeness. Other countries are applying the Tactical Urbanism technique to urban planning policies, and gaining positive effects in various aspects including local activation and customer satisfaction. In contrast, there is lack of perception about Tactical Urbanism and empirical analysis is insufficient in South Korea because researchers mainly focus on case studies. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effects of Tactical Urbanism on the change of placeness in public spaces. Specifically, the success factors of Tactical Urbanism in public spaces are analyzed, and to examine its effects on the improvement of place value. Tactical Urbanism is an urban planning theory that emerged to complement the limitations of new urbanism. It is a term that has been used by urban activists of North America as an urban planning technique to verify effectiveness by temporary verification before a long-term policy is established (Lydon and Garcia, 2015) The causes of the emergence of Tactical Urbanism include increased uncertainty about the future, economic recession, changes in the demographic structure due to the low birth rate and aging population, and the increased use of the Internet owing to the development of science and technology (Lydon and Garcia, 2015). Furthermore, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020, many countries including South Korea has recommended intensive social distancing and suggested methods to strategically changing densely populated cities. The most important feature of Tactical Urbanism is that it draws long-term urban changes through temporary and small urban experiments and it has the advantage of low costs and large effects. One characteristic of Tactical Urbanism cases in South Korea is that is often used together with urban regeneration projects. In addition, there have been many cases that combined with commercial uses such as container malls and pop-up spaces. Currently, many South Korean large cities are implementing urban regeneration projects, but they have limitations due to stereotyped methods. Tactical Urbanism is an appropriate urban planning strategy that can improve the limitations of urban regeneration. This study verifies the effects of Tactical Urbanism on the perception of places by urban residents who visited places utilizing Tactical Urbanism in Seoul. In particular, the causal relationships regarding how the placeness that they used to perceive in the past has changed as a result of Tactical Urbanism are analyzed It is expected that Tactical Urbanism can be utilized as an urban regeneration and place marketing tool and the placeness and image of general urban spaces will be changed based on this study. In addition, this study derives policy and academic implications in relation to Tactical Urbanism in the future.