• Strategies
• Strategies by Government Agency and Department

• Strategy One

To classify a total of 163 cities and counties into urban, urban-rural linkage, and rural types based on population, income and service accessibility

To promote a bottom-up approach to regional development with local government setting up development plans reflecting spatial and socio-economic characteristics of their own while the central government providing support for that

• Strategy Two

To actively promote the 'Creation of Livable Settlement Environment' and the 'Quality of Life Improvement' for cities and counties which are concerned to be excluded from the Economic Regions development policy

To focus on improving quality of life for residents by strengthening software development (education, medical care, culture, environment, etc.) in parallel with hardware development (roads, buildings, facilities, etc.)

To promote convergence of indigenous resources including specialized regional resources, and experiential and tourism resources; generate income and create employment through linkage and cooperation among cities and counties

• Strategy Three

To ensure the National Minium in terms of living standards wherever in the nation by expanding settlement and residential infrastructure in rural villages and small provincial cities

To provide separate support to areas under special circumstances including the 'growth promotion area' and the border area, which remain severely underdeveloped

• Strategy Four

To promote economies of scale and create synergy effects of regional development policies by facilitating inter-regional linkage and cooperation in cultural tourism, environment, welfare, medical care, etc.

To intensify joint marketing for primary, secondary and tertiary industries through linkage and cooperation among cities and counties

To activate joint projects for the siting of NIMBY facilities

To evaluate and provide incentives for best practices of collaborative projects among cities and counties

• Strategy Five

To encourage joint establishment of Local Areas development plans among two or more cities and counties, and provide financial incentives to best practices of collaboration

To introduce block grants for municipal governments to promote projects independently

• Strategies
• Strategies by Government Agency and Department

To improve settlement conditions of rural areas

• To focus on policy support customized to settlement characteristics
• To promote influx of young people in the 30's and 40's by building rural new-towns
• To designate 176 areas by 2008 and 1,000 by 2017 and provide comprehensive support including living environment improvement, landscape improvement, income-generation base expansion, etc.

To generate income, create employment and activate industries in rural areas

• To actively discover locally inherited resources and boost capacity for industrialization
• To actively nurture indigenous agricultural and food industries, and experiential and relaxation services

To attract businesses from outside and improve investment environment

• To promote advancement of agro-industrial complexes, combining them with the function of corporate support services
• To implement deregulation including restrictions on the ownership and trade of marginal farmland(more than 15% of slope ratio), and promote investment in green energy and relaxation businesses

To build better health services in regions

• To create a basic emergency medical care system to meet emergency medical situations within 30 minutes wherever in the nation
• To provide a 'door-to-door medical services' for areas with low accessibility to medical care
• To build a local public health care system by combining together public health centers, local public hospitals, and local college hospitals

To enhance welfare services customized to regional characteristics

• To expand infrastructure for a healthy old age including a long-term medical treatment and dementia inspection services in preparation for the rapidly ageing society
• To increase hub centers of public health from 45 in 2008 to 253 in 2010 for the disabled
• To expand small nursing facilities based on public and welfare facilities for areas lacking private nursing facilities
• To strengthen support for multi-cultural families, which are rapidly increasing in rural areas, prior to marriage until they adjust to the society
• To reorganize the welfare services delivery system to prevent overlaps or misses, and provide necessary services to those just in need

To expand culture and sports infrastructure

• To actively support cultural activities all over the country
• To strengthen infrastructure establishment and support local experts in culture and arts
• To drastically improve conditions for sports in everyday life

To promote tourism resources development in accordance with regional characteristics

• To establish a system for locality-centered tourism resources development and support
• To develop cultural, historial, and ecological tourism resources reflecting regional characteristics

To provide a high quality environmental services

• To improve water supply and sewage treatment rate in rural villages
• To actively promote the 'Living Waterway 100 Project' to restore a total of 100 waterways to ecological waterways by 2012
• To promote the 'Cheonggye Stream + 20 Project' to restore dry or concrete-covered streams in downtown areas, turning them into cultural and leisure spaces

To put to use outstanding local environmental resources

• To create eco- and relaxation villages in and around three national parks by 2010
• To divide the country into 10 areas and create one to two new and renewable energy complexes in each of the areas by 2020
• To create a total of 600 low carbon green villages, and increase energy self-sufficiency rate in rural areas to 40 to 50% by 2020

In order to enhance the quality of life and settlement conditions in Local Areas, PCRD declared ten tasks for both central and local governments: five bottom-up endogenous development tasks and five top-down exogenous development ones.

Promotion of the Creative Region

The concept of the creative region is similar to Richard Florida’s “creative city”, which has become a global movement reflecting the rise of a new planning paradigm for cities. Recognizing that places hold creative potential, the policy scheme of the creative region posits that Local Areas can develop unique and competitive projects and programs by utilizing their own inherited or endowed resources.

This concept applies to any area, whether local or regional. Creativity is not only about having ideas, but also having the capacity to implement them. Therefore, a creative region must have soft infrastructure, including a highly skilled and flexible labor force of dynamic thinkers, creators and implementers. Furthermore, as part of the creative region policy scheme, the government will promote and facilitate the efforts of local areas with administrative support and financial incentives.

In 2010, PCRD announced the guidelines for creative region projects as follows:

1) In order to effectively support creative efforts of local areas, the PCRD, along with central and local governments will introduce a promotion system including education and training, institutional and administrative support, and financial and budget incentives;

2) In the short term, policy focus will be put on local areas such as cultural, educational and welfare projects, as well as locally inherited products, and then gradually expanded to the ER level to include such projects as cultural city, ubiquitous city, and creative industry;

3) In order to facilitate creative region projects and programs, higher subsidy rates will be given from block grants (regional development special accounts).