earticle

영어

This study diagnoses intra-county service imbalances and centrality concentration in Korea’s rural settlement systems by applying Davies’ Functional Index and complementary statistics to three counties in Jeollanam-do. Ten life-service categories (childcare, education, welfare, culture, sports, healthcare, administration, transport, rest, commerce–convenience) were standardized to compute a composite index and classify central-place hierarchies via natural breaks. To mitigate known limitations of a single composite measure, we conducted principal component analysis with Varimax rotation, cluster analysis, and population-linked regressions. Findings reveal severe concentration: the top-ranked eup/myeon accounts for 41.19% of total functional capacity on average (54.37% in County A), while 53% of units fall into the lowest tier. Three factors—Living Infrastructure (convenience, transport, administration, rest), Social Welfare (healthcare, welfare, education, childcare), and Culture–Leisure (culture, sports)—explain 76.6% of variance; population is significantly associated with the first two but not with Culture–Leisure. Typologies suggest differentiated strategies: foundational upgrading for Type I (many myeons), network reinforcement for Type II (eup-level centers), and quality upgrading/differentiation for Type III (a single overperformer). We recommend integrating AHP-based weighting and accessibility metrics with the Functional Index to establish standardized, replicable hierarchy criteria for rural spatial strategies. These results provide actionable guidance for prioritizing investments that sustain rural populations and rebalance life-service provision.