Conceptual sustainability has been considered as a useful concept, but not without the proven difficulty of operationalizing it. The importance of local development, which residents’ attitudes have reflected, is known. Therefore, in order to formulate an approach for sustainable development, a study on sustainable waterfront development has become necessary.
The purpose of this study is to formulate a strategy for realizing acceptable waterfront development based on residents’ attitudes. This study used the characteristics of residents’, the social exchange theory, and 1 step of the LAC(Limits of Acceptable Change)system. They were effected by the results. This was done because it is important to ensure that basic data can be used for the establishment of management objectives.
To realize the objectives outlined in this study, this yielded a sample of 300 to which surveys were sent. 261 surveys were sent to the residents’ of Yeoju. Finally, this resulted in 240 useable responses (80% of the total). Yeoju-Gun, in which four major river restoration projects have been carried out, was selected as the site for investigation. Analyses were conducted to 1) examine relationships between residents’ characteristics and the residents’ attitudes on waterfront development, 2) determine the correlation between residents’ attitudes and their satisfaction with regard to the waterfront, and 3) determine the relationships between the residents’ attitudes toward waterfront development and acceptable development types. The results of this study are as follows:
Some of the residents’ characteristics (gender, monthly income, hometown, residency, real estate owned) were found to be highly uncorrelated with the residents’ attitudes. However, the remaining characteristics (age, marital status, career, and residential area) were found to be correlated with the residents’ attitudes.
The correlation between residents’ attitudes and their satisfaction with regard to the work done for the waterfront was found to be statistically significant(p<.05, r=.489). This study found that the satisfaction with regard to the work done for the waterfront was closely related to the residents’ attitudes and that there was a significant positive relationship between a ‘positive attitude’ and an ‘active attitude’.
This study found that a ‘positive attitude’ had a positive influence on the development with regard to the ‘nature education’, and that an ‘active attitude’ was associated with a positive influence on the development pertaining to the parameters ‘active’, ‘nature education’, and ‘visitors’. Finally, a ‘negative attitude’ was found to have a negative influence on the development pertaining to the parameter ‘nature education’.
This study therefore concludes that development pertaining to the parameter ‘nature education’ arguably has the potential to generate substantial revenues for Yeoju-Gun and could link local development and conservation.Thus, the ‘positive attitude’ group’s positive values should be shared among the members of the groups.