지역상권 활성화를 위한 타운매니저 육성방안에 관한 연구

A Study on Measures to Nurture Town Managers

Local economy recession has come into a serious national issue under the influence of super stores, SSM(Super Super Market) and urban decline phenomenon of old downtown business districts in local cities. To present a solution to this issue, Korean government amended related law in December 2009 to introduce town management system to vitalize business districts which is mainly about appointing business improvement areas and adopting town management organizations. It is not too much to say that the success of the system mainly count on competence of business district improvement organizations, especially town managers would play important roles. In this paper, I focused on examining measures to nurture town managers. It appears that raising awareness and building consensus among tradespeople and local residents are necessary to successfully settle the management system down. Based on this awareness and consensus, men of ability for business district vitalization would be secured in the process. For national and local governments, related organizations are to create atmosphere and foundation to build this social consensus. Most of all, priority should be put on discovering leading supporters for business district improvement, while focusing on establishing a base of support for business district improvement. It is strongly required to interconnect the supporters, its leaders and town managers, forming a trinity which would successfully operate business district improvement work. In case of South Korea, a shortage of time and know-how are of a hindrance for nurturing human resources when considering its early stage of the system adoption. To find out a solution, it is needed to strengthen projects to publish related information such as the objectives, necessity and contents of the system. Also, it is also needed to establish concrete instructions to nurture human resources for town management. Above all, I believe these measures would generate a significant effect on operation of business district improvement projects: set up a desirable model for town managers, take measures to nurture talened town managers, extend the base of required human resources in a midlong term period by setting periods in detail to foster manpower.