The Spatio-Temporal Patterns of the Vacant Homes Clusters and Their Impact on the Neighborhood Land Price*- The Case of Busan Metropolitan City -

It is acknowledged that abandoned properties have negative social and environmental impacts on the adjacent neighborhood, depressing its land value. This study aims to investigate both spatio-temporal patterns and characteristics of the clusters of vacant homes and to analyze their impact on the neighborhood land price. As for the spatio-temporal patterns in Busan Metropolitan city, the main cluster has been continually fixed in downtown for the past 10 years and the cluster areas have been gradually expanded to their surrounding districts. The socially disadvantaged who have lived in these clusters reside in inferior and deteriorated housing facilities with physically poor and unsafe surrounding environment. As for the impact on the neighborhood land price, it is shown that the spatio-temporal patterns of the vacant homes clusters and those of the districts with low prices of residential land are quite similar. This study may give some significant insights into establishing efficient policies such as urban regeneration and residential environment improvement projects of local authorities which have suffered from the increment of vacant homes in the city of Busan.