Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) has become a popular urban planning approach to preventing crime and mitigating fear of crime through the improvement of physical neighborhood environments. CPTED is widely used to improve deteriorated neighborhoods that suffer from crime. However, few studies have empirically examined the complex relationships among CPTED, fear of crime, and active living. Our study, therefore, investigated the effects of CPTED measures on walking frequency and fear of crime, analyzing behavioral data of residents living in participatory neighborhood regeneration areas and matched neighborhoods. We analyzed survey data from 12 neighborhoods that implemented CPTED approaches and 12 matched neighborhoods in Seoul, Korea, using structural equation modeling, which could consistently estimate complex direct and indirect relationships between a latent variable (fear of crime) and observable variables (CPTED measures and walking frequency). We designed the survey instrument as a smartphone app. Participants were recruited from 102 locations within the 24 selected neighborhoods; in total, 623 individuals returned surveys. The results revealed that sufficient closed-circuit television, street lighting, and maintenance played a significant role in mitigating fear of crime. This study has implications for planning and policy issues related to CPTED, mental health, and active living.

As in other postcolonial settings, after its independence, Korean urban planning was still influenced by the Japanese legacy in planning culture, systems of approach, and urban form. However, there was a turning point beginning in the 1960s, led by Oswald Nagler and the Housing, Urban and Regional Planning Institute (HURPI). Nagler applied an interdisciplinary approach to the Korean urban situation and made substantial efforts to apply and localize Western planning principles in accordance with the Korean context, and educated young talented individuals. Even though the institute has been repetitively reported to have exerted a profound influence on the formation of Korean urban planning, its function and specific contribution has largely remained obscure. This study clarifies HURPI’s function and contribution by way of interviews with its members, recovering otherwise lost materials, and analyzing them with a focus on the South Seoul plan in comparison to works done by local planners at the time, as well as later work on the Mok-dong plan.

While the Japanese legacy remained in Korean urban planning even after the country's independence following the Second World War, direct influence from Western countries became available through various aid programmes. Amongst planning-related programmes, the Asia Foundation's HURPI (Housing, Urban and Regional Planning Institute), led by Oswald Nagler, an urban planning consultant, was noteworthy in its experimental approach and influence. HUPRI's urban planning approach focussed on minimum dwelling studies which reflected Korea's housing traditions, culture and economic conditions, and expanded them to large-scale planning. Even though literature on modern Korean planning history has acknowledged HURPI, its minimum dwelling approach is rarely mentioned, mainly because of the lack of documentation. By recovering unpublished materials personally kept by HURPI members and interviewing key individuals, this paper identifies the contents and the meaning of HURPI's minimum dwelling approach in the history of architecture and urban planning in South Korea. Comparative analyses with Western precedents and works by other Korean planning agencies at the time are also considered in order to understand HURPI's approach, and to identify how imported architectural and planning methodologies responded to Korean local contexts.

Since neo-liberalism emerged in the 1980s, private actors have started to take a primary role in urban planning and foreign private developers became important actors, especially in urban development in developing countries. In order to investigate the mechanism of large-scale property developments by foreign developers, this paper focused on three cases developed by Koreans in Vietnam and investigated their similarities in development processes, and the resultant urban forms through analyzing relevant documents and conducting a series of in-depth interviews. As a result, a common strategy employed by Korean firms was to build villas first and apartments later, which would distort the resultant urban form. Conflicts with local governments over the provision of public facilities were another feature shared by these projects, and the provision of urban infrastructure, in turn, was scaled down during scheme changes. While previous studies argued that neglecting urban infrastructure has been a common feature of developments influenced by the privatization trend, foreign developers have more financial burdens and risks than their domestic counterparts, which increases the possibility of such neglect.