Abstract

This study proposes the new concept of ‘urban events,’ which encom- passes those events, including urban festivals, commemorative rituals, artistic and sport events, of which the function is the social integration of diverse local population of various scale, ranging from neighbourhood to the entire city. This study also suggests several measures for enhancing the sense of local community through those urban events. Organizers of various urban events throughout Korea have attempted to express, both externally and internally, the identity of the locality concerned by selecting particular, out of myriads of, symbolic resources locally available. In our view, however, it is not enough for the urban event to express the presumed identity of the locality. It is only when the local people come to experience the sense of belonging to the locality through participating, either directly or indirectly, in a specific urban event that the urban event may be said to be functioning as a catalyst for the enhancement of the urban local community. Based upon the afore-mentioned problematique, this study comparatively analyzes four different, more or less successful, cases of urban events found in four different Korean cities: the Gangneung Danoje Festival, the Gwangju May 18 Memorial Ceremony, the Bucheon International Comics Festival, the Pohang Steelers Football Club. We first examines, in each case, how different types of urban event manages to express the identity of the city concerned by combining various elements of symbolic resources locally available. We then discusses, via comparative analysis of the four cases, the practical measures needed for the urban event to function eventually as the catalyst for the formation of urban local community through successfully enhancing the sense of community amongst its participants. We suggest four such practical measures; firstly, appropriate item and format of the urban event, and secondly, sustainably securing the positive experience of participation in the urban event on the part of local people, and thirdly, forming efficient governance structure between the public and private sector related to the planning and implementation of the urban event, and fourthly, building up proper design of the urban event space which is in tune with the overall spatial design of the city concerned.