The Impact of a Growth Center on an Agricultural Hinterland: A Case Study of Taegu, Korea

Although the location of large urban centers such as Seoul, Pusan, and Taegu has had a major impact on changes in the surrounding agricultural hinterland, regional differences of agricultural development in Korea have not received much attention until recently (Fig. 1). Keidel, for example, noted that Kyongi-do and Kyongsangnam-do have higher agricultural income levels than the remainder of the country because they produce commercial crops for Seoul and Pusan, respectively.1 More recently, after the construction of a modern highway between these two cities, Chungchongbuk-do and Kyongsangbuk-do provinces emerged as the major suppliers of commercial crops for Seoul and Pusan. If an increase in urban income induces a change in demand for subsistence crops to commercial crops, the surrounding agricultural land should shift its crop production in a corresponding manner. In subsistence agriculture, the location of the market is not very important because agricultural products are not transported to markets. Consequently, the pattern of subsistence crops should reveal a random relationship to the market center. In commercial crop production, transportation costs become an important factor in determining the profitable location of a crop. As more commercial crops are grown, production should conform increasingly to the land use pattern described by agricultural rent theory. The goal of this paper is to examine such changes in agricultural production patterns in the hinterland of an intermediate urban growth center, Taegu, using myon level data.2