Anticipatory Regionalization of Busan’s Emerging Gateway Region: A Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Gateway Development

Gateway regions contain operating ports, planned airports and logistics districts with different delivery horizons. This article develops anticipatory gateway regionalization as a conditional framework for the formation of complementary capabilities before all assets operate. The scholarly synthesis covers 60 works selected through reference-led screening and a dated six-query targeted discovery search. A nine-record official-document analysis, 2023–2025 port throughput baseline and structured Singapore–Dubai comparison provide bounded context. Four mechanisms—temporal alignment, functional complementarity, spatial and urban embedding, and institutional orchestration—organize six untested propositions. Existing systematic reviews limit claims of novelty and document competing interpretations. The records identify port growth, asynchronous project plans, a 2024 environmental-scoping notice, earlier port consultations and a 2026 airport-project coordination meeting. They do not establish a binding cross-modal coordination mechanism or its effects. A proposition-specific challenge audit distinguishes observed precursors from rival explanations and unavailable outcomes. The operational/developmental hinterland distinction and service-specific stranded adjacency identify conceptual boundaries. An operating baseline and a dimensionless financial illustration provide descriptive and conditional appraisal evidence. Firm-level routing, additional regional value, post-opening services and causal effects remain unmeasured. The contribution is a bounded conceptual and documentary analysis, not an empirical validation of all six propositions.