earticle

영어

Population decline and population aging have made shrinking cities a critical issue. Urban shrinkage occurs within individual cities and through interactions with metropolitan areas; therefore, a metropolitan perspective is required, although research at this scale remains limited. This study examines changes in urban centrality and their determinants in the Busan–Ulsan metropolitan area between 2010 and 2019. The unit of analysis is si-gun-gu, and commuting flow data were used to calculate in-degree and out-degree centralities through social network analysis. Changes in centrality were then analyzed, and multiple regression was conducted with centrality change as the dependent variable. Results show that some shrinking cities maintained centrality despite population decline, while some non-shrinking cities experienced decline. For in-degree centrality, significant factors included manufacturing workers (–), service workers (+), fiscal self-reliance (–), residential development (–), central region (+), and administrative area size (+). For out-degree centrality, elderly population (–), total floor area of buildings (+), fiscal self-reliance (+), and central region (–) were significant.