Spatial change in urban employment distribution in Seoul metropolitan city: clustering, dispersion and general dispersion

The primary purpose of this paper is to identify whether the spatial distribution of employment moves towards clustering or dispersing by examining the change in spatial distribution of employment in Seoul metropolitan city. This paper first identifies the centre and subcentres with the cut-off approach and then examines the changing direction of employment distribution by estimating both monocentric and polycentric employment density functions. For the estimation, this paper utilizes a three-digit industrial classification data for the years 2000, 2005 and 2010, which contain detailed information on distribution of employment. The main findings are as follows. First, the spatial structure of Seoul is apparently polycentric. Second, the central business districts (CBD) loses its dominance over Seoul's economy in terms of the number of employment, and the newly emerging Gangnam subcentre became the largest employment centre in Seoul. Third, the estimates of employment density functions (both monocentric and polycentric) tell us that the generalized dispersion hypothesis is not acceptable in the case of Seoul. Fourth, the pattern of spatial distribution of employment varies by industry, represented by centre-oriented, CBD-oriented and non-centre-oriented industries.