Basic Report

This study aims at improving economic and policy analyses conducted in the feasibility studies for urban park provision. With respect to the economic analysis, LIMAC estimates the benefits using the contingent valuation method(CVM), a stated preference method that simultaneously considers the use and non-use value of urban park. In this study, a convergent validity test was performed with the travel cost method(TCM), a revealed preference method, to see if CVM secures validity in doing the feasibility studies. We also performed another convergent test with stated preference TCM. The results from these two tests showed that the estimates from CVM were lower than the both types of TCMs. This signals us that in urban neighborhood parks, use values are no less than non-use.
   In the aspect of policy analysis, there have been efforts to assess qualitatively a various type of positive effects which urban parks have in neighboring local area. In particular, LIMAC has worked with an advisory group consisting of urban planning experts. In addition to doing field study on the area of interest and interviewing with local governments making the plan for the investment, the advisory group comprehensively reviews the need for the park provision of interest by analyzing the location, terrain, and land use characteristics from an urban planning perspective. While this approach has some advantage over just doing quantitative-feasibility study for the project of interest, we need to go further to secure more validity for feasibility study conducted by giving the-advisory-group approach above a detailed check list of qualitative characteristics of urban park to be considered. In this study, we seek a set of indicators of important characteristics related to the evaluation of urban parks by studying local and global cases at home and abroad. Then, experts in urban planning were invited to do focus group interview(FGI) to select indicators that are qualitative in nature but have to be considered to complement economic assessment in any feasibility study for urban park. We devised a total of 20 indicators in order to help decision makers to determine the need for urban park construction. Each indicator would be graded from A to D in a total of five stages, with scores ranging from 1 to 5 points for each grade. The total score less than 40 which is lower than an average score, would be considered to have a low feasibility.