Empirical analysis of the Social Effects of the Cultural City Project : The Case of the Chuncheon Cultural City Project “Dosiga Salon”

Korea's cultural city project has been promoted since 2019 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Although this project has been in progress for four years, there is little empirical analysis of performance or effectiveness. Chuncheon City was selected as a preliminary cultural city in 2019 and then designated as a cultural city in 2020. The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the social effects of the Chuncheon Cultural City project “Dosiga Salon”. This study established factors at the individual level(cultural enjoyment, happiness, domiciliation factors, awareness of exchange, connectedness), regional level(social capital), and project level(recognition of program effectiveness). In addition, the effect was estimated based on the accumulated experience of the program(frequency or period of program participation). The survey was conducted on 260 space owners, professionals, and residents who participated in this project, and social effects were analyzed through independent sample T-Test and one-way ANOVA. As a result of the analysis, the group that participated in this project frequently or for a long time generally had a higher average score than the group that did not participate, and the results were statistically significant. These results show that the cultural city project is leading to positive changes in local residents. The results were consistent with the goals of the cultural city project: ‘expanding the enjoyment of culture by local residents’ and ‘creating a local cultural foundation and strengthening capabilities’. Based on these results, we proposed the need to establish a mid-term plan for this project, develop community programs, and build social capital.