초록
In contemporary society, the importance of communities is becoming more crucial, and the youth centers, which play fundamental role in youth development, are significant in that they contribute to enhancing local communities. In Korea, with the enactment of the Youth Act, youth facilities were built by local governments as youth issues became important both socially and politically. The role of youth centers has recently become more important as five-day school week was implemented leaving youth with more spare time. With the recognition of the importance of youth centers, this paper examined the distribution of youth centers in Korea and particularly in Seoul. Due to institutional regulations, the distribution of youth training centers is fixed to one youth center to one district in general. What is means is that it is not the function of these facilities as a community space for youths but rather the equitable distribution of supply over space as a 'regional' community facility when they decide its scale and location. The research showed that the location neither corresponds to urban hierarchy nor to residential distribution in terms of access, leaving many youths without a facility close to them to use. This paper also conducted a comparative study of the characteristics of youth facilities in Seoul and Vancouver in terms of their location, operation and accessibility. While youth centers were distributed by administrative convenience, Vancouver's youth centers were located in smaller community district units with walking access in mind. This also had implication to scale of facilities. Korean youth centers were large scale facilities whereas Vancouver youth centers were mainly smaller with some strategic facilities with extended functions such as swimming pools and ice rinks. Vancouver youth centers were also found that are they were close to schools and residential areas, and were easily reached by younger youths. Due to these characteristics, the role of youth centers are very different in Korea and Vancouver City. From the differences in the two cities approach as found in this paper, we can suggest some policy improvements in Korea such as institutional set up, locational factors and facilities so that youth centers can play a greater social role in community building.