A Sustainable Operations and Management System for Urban Design Administration: Comparative Evidence from South Korea and Japan

Urban design administration has grown rapidly since the 2000s as legal and institutional frameworks have been strengthened, and dedicated organizations have expanded within local governments. Despite this progress, structural limitations remain in securing sustainability, governance, fairness, and administrative efficiency consistently across the full policy cycle. This study aims to construct an integrated operations and management system for urban design administration and to empirically validate the relationships among its key principles. First, a literature review was conducted to derive four core principles and corresponding measurement indicators. Second, institutional operations in South Korea and Japan were comparatively analyzed to identify distinctive administrative characteristics. Third, a survey was administered to public officials responsible for urban design-related administrative work (e.g., architecture, urban planning, public design, landscape). A total of 76 valid responses were collected (South Korea: 46; Japan: 30) using a five-point Likert scale and analyzed through reliability testing, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, independent-samples t -tests, and multiple regression analyses including mediation tests. The measurement model demonstrates adequate reliability and construct validity. The comparative analysis suggests that South Korea shows relative strengths in implementation momentum and short-term execution capacity, whereas Japan exhibits stronger features in long-term policy continuity, clarity of role allocation, and institutionalized participatory governance. Empirical results indicate that fairness is significantly associated with administrative efficiency, and governance is a critical factor explaining policy sustainability. However, several hypothesized relationships and mediation effects are not statistically significant. Cross-national comparison confirms a significant difference only in perceived sustainability, with higher evaluations reported in South Korea. Overall, the findings imply that operational performance in urban design administration is more closely associated with institutional governance maturity and procedural fairness than with simple process simplification or short-term performance management. Policy implications are proposed, including lifecycle-based policy management, strengthened participation mechanisms at the planning stage, standardized and transparent review/procurement procedures, and organizational strategies to mitigate discontinuity stemming from frequent staff rotation.