Introduction
The opinions of users on landscape spaces have been collected in the planning or designing process, or in the form of post occupancy evaluation (POE). In the process of planning and designing, the opinions of users are heard in order to plan landscape areas that many people prefer to use. The activity patterns of potential users are predicted, or reactions to an initial plan or design are researched. Post occupancy evaluation (POE), however, focuses on the application of feedback (Park, 2005), with the aim of evaluating the developed plan and design, and establishing guidelines for maintenance and management.
In the case of a new town, however, there are two limitations in collecting the opinions of existing users. First, it is difficult to specify existing users in advance due to the characteristic of a new town plan that main users―residents in this case―are determined after the plan and design are finalized. Of course, it is possible to research the demand for parks and green areas or the tendency of users by selecting a demographic and socio-economic group similar to the actual user group as used in designing tourist attractions or urban landscape areas.
Parks within a new town are not for tourism purposes, and unlike urban parks, they are mainly used by residents living in the new town. For this reason, it is difficult to contact residents who will be the actual users until the move-in period begins. Moreover, from a perspective of the residents, parks and green areas within the new town are the living environments for their family and themselves that will be developed with the money they pay. In other words, it is differently recognized from typical city parks to realize urban-environmental utility with local government budgets. It means that new city landscaping is characterized by the fact that users are involved in and responding to it far more intensively with a consumer’s viewpoint and consciousness of right.
The second is the limitation of direct participation. The methods of resident participation are divided into direct participation and indirect participation based on the immediacy of participation (Kim, 1980). Methods to directly collect the opinions of residents that are widely used in landscape planning include interview, survey, design charrette, resident-expert consultative council, resident supervisor program, etc. However, since these landscape plans for a new town are performed not in a unit-size area, but in a small-city-size area, these kinds of direct participation are inefficient and difficult to represent the whole residents. In addition, only those who have a certain amount of leisure time can participate in design charrette, consultative council and resident supervisor program. In the case of survey research, it is possible to increase the representativeness of surveys by collecting massive samples and extracting them randomly, but their usability is often limited because the data are collected quantitatively only.
For this reason, landscape plans in new towns have often faced more complaints, mass demonstrations, civil complaints than other landscape projects. In the cases of recently developed new towns, users have expressed their collective complaints through online communities of residents. Such online communities are joined by actual residents with high membership ratios, and anyone has an equal right to speak, thus being recognized as an alternative to addressing the limitations of direct participation methods. However, since they are closed communities and residents express their opinions anonymously, opinions posted on the communities tend to lack public interest and universality and often contain NIMBY(Not In My Back Yard) and PIMFY (Please In My Front Yard) opinions as shown in the study of Jeong (2015). For this reason, the opinions obtained through the channel need to be refined more to be used for policy decision making.
While Internet communities for residents are private channels through which opinions of residents on landscape plans in new towns are collected, homepages of local governments or developers can be public channels to collect opinions. Opinions and civil complaints posted on the homepages are raised by residents, and thus they can be useful information to analyze opinions from a perspective of residents (Cheon and Kim, 2009:106). Moreover, since developers of new towns are mostly publicly-owned companies, complaints posted using real names are only accepted, thus having a certain level of reliability.
This study paid attention to changes in the reaction channels of residents on landscaping projects in a new town. The rapidly evolving Internet and mobile device environments have had a significant impact on the methods to directly collect opinions. Without temporal and spatial boundaries, the homepages of developers are open to anyone, and effective channels to collect opinions. The rate of use of the homepages has gradually increased over the past few years, and thus they are expected to be more useful going forward.
Thus, in this study, the wide range of residents’ reactions to landscaping projects in a new town will be analyzed and their characteristics will be reviewed by utilizing the opinions posted on the homepages of developers. In particular, in terms of plant species in landscape planting, which accounts for a large share of landscaping projects, differences in users’ preferences are big, and they show different reactions to them depending on seasons and growth conditions. The homepages of developers without temporal and spatial boundaries are expected to be very useful to directly grasp the opinions of residents.
The exploratory attempts in this study are to review the utility of the homepages as channels to collect opinions so as to diagnose the future usability of the homepages. To realize the purpose, sub-goals are set as follows: First, the general characteristics of the officially-received opinions of residents are identified. Second, the general opinions on landscape planting are classified into types. Landscaping projects are divided in detail and opinions are analyzed accordingly. The correlation between the assertiveness to state opinions, and the contents and validity of opinions is reviewed.
Research method
1. Research target site
In this study, Gwanggyo New Town surrounding Suwon and Yongin was researched. The new town was mainly developed by the Gyeonggi Urban Innovation Corporation (GICO). Its total area is 11,305,000 m2 , and 4.87% (4,950,000 m2 ) is covered by parks and green spaces. The development plan of the new town was first approved in 2005, and site renovation began in 2007. Residents started to move into the new town in 2011. As of 2016, most of the planned apartment buildings except a few small residential and commercial complex are occupied. The completion of the new town is scheduled for 2019 when supplementary construction in some facilities, and additional construction projects demanded by residents are expected to be finalized.
Landscape spaces are comprised of parks (neighborhood parks, historic parks and children’s parks), green spaces (green buffer zone, landscape green zone and connection green zone), public open spaces and streams. The landscape project for Gwanggyo New Town was conducted in 6 districts, and the construction began in 2010 and ended in 2012~2013. The authority of the created landscape was handed over to local governments.
This research site is located in the densely-populated capital area. Gwanggyo Lake Park is located at the center of the new town, and its design was selected in the “International Design Competition.” The designs of other 13 neighborhood parks were also developed through the “Special Park Concept Design Competition,” and the winner of the competition was appointed as a “supervisor of park design.” To provide quality landscape materials, the “Rare Landscape Material Competition” was held, and efforts were made to secure good-shaped or rare plant materials in advance. As the efforts were recognized, Gwanggyo Lake Park was selected as the “Landscape of the Year (2014)” hosted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT of South Korea). Thus, Gwangyo New Town is found to have suitable conditions to become the target site for research on the current status of the parks and green areas in a new town in Korea.
2. Data collection
The data used in this study are users’ opinions stored in the internal network of the developer of Gwanggyo New Town. The data had been accumulated through 2 channels. The first channel was the “Voices of Customers”section created on the homepage of the Gyeonggi Urban Innovation Corporation (GICO). The second channel was civil complaints received through the homepages of Suwon and Yongin Cities that have jurisdiction over Gwanggyo New Town. All the civil complaints received by the two city halls were transferred to the GICO. Thus, the data used in this study cover all the opinions and reactions of residents in Gwanggyo New Town.
The number of opinions received within the research period was 6,765 in total, and all the titles of 6,765 opinions were reviewed one by one. Those associated with landscape planting were collected, and the number of collected opinions was 142. To increase the reliability of the data and prevent the results from being distorted, the same opinions registered by the same person were counted as one case, and the initial opinion was only collected and counted as a valid opinion.
Users can write their opinions and titles freely without any limitation to the number of words. Since only basic personal information including name, address, e-mail and telephone is collected, it was impossible to identify their geographic and social-economic characteristics. However, their gender was assumed based on their names (Fig. 1).
Based on the information filled out in the form of users’ opinion, data on the date of writing, gender, motive, target area, the number of opinions, validity, and processing results were established (Table 1). First of all, the gender of users was assumed based on their name, and gender-neutral names were counted as N/A to minimize errors. The number of opinions was the frequency of opinions written using the same name. Motives were divided into 3 nominal criteria including inquiry and request for information; expressing dissatisfaction and demand for improvement; and novel proposal based on the criteria suggested by Lee et al. (2013 : 250). Target areas were classified based on the categories used in Act on Urban Parks, Greenbelts, etc. The validity of opinions were evaluated using the 5-point scale after reviewing their contents in terms of objective validity and public interest.
Table 1
Research Items and measurement scale.
3. Analysis method
The detailed characteristics of the collected data were reviewed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative analysis was carried out by first reviewing the contents of the collected opinions, and categorizing them into several types. The criteria presented in the Landscape Architectural Standard Specification (KILA, 2014) were utilized to categorize landscape planting projects, and keywords for each category were extracted for in-depth analysis.
Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS Statistics 18.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). First, the frequency and percentage of the collected data were calculated to analyze the general distribution and characteristics of the data. Then, correlation analysis between key variables was carried out, and a chi-square test was used to comprehensively analyze the collected opinions of residents.
Results and discussion
1. Types and characteristics of residents ’ opinions
Monthly frequency analysis was conducted to review monthly trends in residents’ opinions on landscape planting projects and their seasonal fluctuations (Fig. 2). Out of the 12 months, the number of opinions received in July (in summer) was the highest (19.7%), showing a significant difference compared to other seasons. It can be attributable to the facts that plants grow rapidly in summer, and thus that residents become more interested in plants and observe them more frequently. On the contrary, the numbers of opinions received in winter were far lower than other seasons: December (0%), January (2.1%) and February (2.8%). It can be attributable to the facts that the rate of use of parks in winter is lower than summer, and that it is difficult to observe the growth state of plants in winter. Monthly differences in spring and autumn were relatively low, but the frequency levels in spring were higher than those in autumn.
Frequency analysis was also conducted on general characteristics including gender, the number of opinions and target area (Table 2). The share of males was 75.4%, three times higher than that of females, showing clear differences. The frequency of the number of opinions written using the same name was measured as follows: 2-5 times (43.0%); over 10 times (22.5%); 1 time (21.1%); and 6-10 times (13.4%). This indicates that residents tend to present their opinions on landscape planting projects repeatedly rather than just one time.
Table 2
Demographic Characteristics.
In terms of motives, the share of ‘expressing dissatisfaction and demand for improvement’ was the highest (81.7%), followed by ‘inquiry and request for information (10.6%),’ and ‘novel proposal (7.7%).’ This indicates that many residents tend to visit the homepage of the relevant organizations as they are aware of issues in landscape planting projects. Residents expressed their opinions on parks (32.4%) most, and the levels of streams (21.8%), street (19.7%) and green (19.0%) were similar. The share of public open space was far lower (4.2%) than others. The results of validity analysis showed that 40.5% of the collected data were very highly valid, and 22% highly valid. Likewise, as about 62.5% of the collected data showed a certain level of validity, the overall validity of the collected data was evaluated to be high.
All the residents who send opinions to the developer are informed of the possibility of the acceptance of their opinions that is assessed based on institutional and practical conditions. The replies are categorized into unsolvable, partially solvable and fully solvable. Developers tend to reply positively to the opinions of customers under their management principle of customer satisfaction. Thus, to increase the reliability of the results of analysis, the decisions of the developer were reassessed from an objective perspective and the original data were corrected.
The results were as follows: fully solvable, 50%; partially solvable, 37.3%; and unsolvable, 12.7%. The analysis results of processing results were consistent with those of validity analysis to some extent. The share of the opinions of which validity was positive was 62.5%. Even though residents’ opinions are valid from perspectives of institutions and sociallyaccepted ideas, they often conflict with practical issues such as process control and budget. The results processed well correspond to the summary of 62.5% in opinions securing validity according to the results of evaluating the validity of residents’ opinions. Even if residents’ opinions are valid in terms of contents, if any practical problems related to construction scheduling or budgeting, arise, it is hard to conduct processing. Therefore, 62.5% valid residents’ opinions did converge into 50% complete resolution and 37.3% partial resolution properly.
2. General reaction to landscape planting projects
Residents’ reactions to landscape planting projects were categorized after analyzing the contents of the reactions (Table 3). All the reactions were classified into 10 categories. The share of opinions on ‘replacing dead woods’was the highest (29.4%), followed by ‘demand for additional planting (18.2%),’ ‘need for slope vegetation (10.5%),’ ‘revetment loss (10.5%).’ The shares of other types were relatively low: ‘demand for functional planting (5.6%),’ ‘complaints on trees (5.6%),’ ‘planting problems (5.6%),’ ‘problems in buffer green spaces (4.2%),’ and ‘ground cover flowers (2.8%).’
Table 3
General reaction to landscape planting.
Opinions on ‘replacing dead trees’ are to demand for the replacement of dead or dying woods after landscape planting projects. As the state of dead or dying landscape trees can be easily noticed by anyone anytime except winter, it seems that the reactions were high. Although planting techniques have continued to be developed over time, natural disasters caused by abnormal temperature occur more frequently and result in huge damage to landscape planting areas (Yoo and Lee, 2013: 78). According to the Comprehensive Auditing of the Gyeonggi Provincial Government (Gyeonggi Province, 2016), landscape trees in Gwanggyo New Town withered massively twice in 2012 and 2016, and given that, such reactions to dead trees are reasonable. It is also attributable to the practice of leaving dead trees to handle them at once not individually due to the characteristics of large-scale projects.
Opinions on‘demand for additional planting’ are reactions to demand for additional planting since residents believe the current number of plants is not enough. Such demands were divided in detail into buffer green spaces, public open spaces surrounding Lake Park, riverside, recharge areas and banks. Although ‘need for slope vegetation (10.5%),’ ‘demand for functional planting (5.6%),’ and ‘ground cover･herbaceous flowers (2.8%)’ were separately categorized, they are indeed included in ‘demand for additional planting.’ If they are combined altogether, the share would increase to 26.6%. The primary reason behind the high reactions to ‘demand for additional planting’ may be the lack of the amount of shades of trees due to the insufficient rooting of plants at an early stage. As shown in the study of Kim and Kim (2015: 545), the satisfaction level of the amount of shade and shading trees among the users of Gwanggyo Lake Park was low, and the amount of plants is also indeed short of the public demand.
The ‘demand for slope vegetation (10.5%)’ can be attributable to large cutting areas and sloped sides created by mountains and hills in the research site. High demands for vegetation on slopes and retaining walls indicate residents’ relatively high awareness of landscape, and high understanding of the utility of plants in improving undesirable landscape.
Some residents pointed out that soundproof walls installed within buffer green spaces made the parts of the buffer green spaces belong to nearby apartments. The reactions came from neighbors who thought they were relatively disadvantaged in terms of using buffer green spaces. Side effects of the facilities installed to raise the soundproof function of buffer green spaces were well pointed out from a perspective of users. Demands for the elimination or reduction of green spaces in front of shops were observed in an early stage of the new town. Recently, however, the convenience of businesses is fully considered in the process of design and the awareness of that increases, resulting in less complaints. In this study, reactions to the issue were also not significant.
Opinions on ‘revetment loss (10.5%)’ were mostly received during the flood season or right after the rainy season in summer. Among opinions on ‘planting problems,’ ‘unremoved rubber bands after planting (2.8%)’ was one of the most frequently reported complaints after the completion of planting. Those on the surface of the soil are usually removed, and the effects of unremoved rubber bands on the growth of plants are also not significant, but from a perspective of residents, it is under standable for them to feel uncomfortable about the blackcolored artificial materials.
3. Reaction frequency and correlation of contents
To review the frequency of the reactions to landscape planting projects and correlation between contents, a chi-square test was conducted (Table 4). The number of samples was not enough to generalize them, but the results showed a statistically significant (p<0.01). Those who reacted once accounted for 21.1% of the total, and expressed opinion mostly on ‘revetment loss (34.5%).’ This is a clear difference from other frequency groups. Those in this group tend to express relatively less opinions, and the high percentage of ‘revetment loss’ indicates that their main motive was a strong awareness of the issue right after the localized torrential downpours in summer. The result of analysis of the mean value was 2.10. This is close to ‘partially resolvable,’ and, compared to other frequency ranges, the acceptability of the opinions was the lowest.
Table 4
Association between the number of opinions and the contents of opinions.
Those who reacted 2-5 times showed their opinions on various issues relatively evenly unlike other groups. The number of opinions on ‘replacing dead trees (23.6%)’ was the highest, and they also showed relatively high interest in other issues such as ‘demand for additional planting (16.4%),’ ‘need for slope vegetation (16.4%),’ ‘demand for functional planting (12.7%),’ and ‘planting problems (10.9%).’
The notable characteristic of the group of those who reacted 6-10 times was that their reactions focused on ‘replacing dead trees (78.9%),’ 2-7 times higher than that of other groups. It was assumed that this group had a high interest in plants, and this in turn resulted in a relatively low interest in other issues. The result of analysis of the mean value was 2.63, the highest among all the groups. This can be attributable to the fact that the opinions on ‘replacing dead trees’ are mostly valid practically.
Those who reacted over 10 times are very active in expressing their opinions, but the result of analysis of the mean value was 2.31, the second lowest following the group of those who reacted once. Their opinions were mainly about ‘replacing dead trees (37.95)’ and ‘demand for additional planting (37.9%),’ and in particular the share of ‘demand for additional planting’ in this group was 2-7 times higher than that of other groups. The share of ‘ground cover flowers (6.9%)’ was also higher than that of other groups. It was found that those in this group actively expressed their complaint about landscape trees and demands for quantitative expansion.
Conclusion
Through the analysis of residents’ opinions on landscape projects in the new town, meaningful findings were obtained including the characteristics of residents’ opinions, interest levels in sub-projects and issues associated with landscape planting projects, awareness of issues in planting projects, the characteristics of frequency groups, and correlation between results.
First, the number of opinions received by the relevant organizations was high in summer and spring, and relatively low in winter. This indicated that opinions were filed mostly in the seasons when people could easily observe changes in the growth of plants. The share of males who expressed opinions was 3 times higher than that of females, showing a male -dominated characteristic. The share of those who reacted 2~5 times was the highest, and their main motive was ‘expressing dissatisfaction and demand for improvement.’ The validity of the opinions was objectively analyzed, and 62.5% of the total was fully or partially valid. The share of the opinions categorized as‘fully solvable’took up the majority.
Second, reactions to landscape planting projects were classified into 10 categories. The number of the reactions to‘replacing dead trees’ was the highest, followed by ‘demand for additional planting,’ ‘need for slope vegetation,’ and ‘revetment loss.’ The high share of the opinions on dead trees is attributable to the fact that anyone can easily observe abnormal conditions. It is believed that the main reason behind the high reactions to ‘demand for additional planting’ was the lack of the amount of shades of trees after the completion of planting projects.
Third, the correlation between the contents of opinions and frequency rates was statistically significant. Those who expressed opinions once mainly complained about‘revetment loss,’while other groups expressed a high interest in ‘replacing dead trees.’ Among them, the group of those who reacted 6-10 times showed the highest share, and the group of those who reacted over 10 times expressed the same level of interest both in ‘replacing dead trees’ and ‘demand for additional planting.’
Through this analysis, it was found that residents showed the highest reactions to both dead trees and losses, and additional planting. This shows their quantitative demand for plants, and the result shows the clearly different characteristic of parks and green areas in a new town from urban parks. It is because parks and green areas in a new town are mostly used by children and the elderly. However, since this study was conducted on one case, the probability of other factors such as topographical or microclimatic conditions in the site cannot be ignored. Therefore, other new town cases need to be compared and analyzed in depth through follow-up studies.
As a result of the study, the homepage of the business contractor in the new town landscaping work was very useful as the route of the residents’ participation. Therefore, there is a need for enthusiastic facilitation and sophisticated management of resident opinion received on the homepage.
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