지방소멸과 지방자치법제의 역할

Abstract

The term "local 方消滅" is one of the most widely used terms in our society, includingpolitics, society, and economy, as well as in the field of local autonomy. Since the term "localextinction" is stipulated in the law, it can be said to be a statutory term, but there is noregulation that defines the concept of local extinction, and the area where the populationdecreases is regarded as a local extinction area and supports it. The first appearance of the word "local extinction" came from the "Masda Report"submitted in Japan in 2014 at the Japan Creation Conference, where Hiroya Masuda (增⽥寬也), the former Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, is the chief. In Japan, the word "population decline" was used in politics, local public organizations, andacademia in the sense that the population of the metropolitan area centered on Tokyo woulddecrease due to a black hool phenomenon that sucked in the local population, but the term"local extinction" was used in the book "Stop Low Fertility and Local Vitalization StrategyReport" (Masuda Report) published by the 議 of Japan's 創 Congregation on May 8, 2014 and"Local Extinction" by Hiroya Masuda. The Masuda report published a study showing thatJapan could lose half of its local governments as the local population drops sharply over thenext 25 years. If the current population decline is between 2014 and 2040, for example, ifthe female population between the ages of 20 and 39 decreases to less than 50%, 896areas, or 49.8% of Japan's cities, towns, and villages, will disappear. At the time, the Masudareport said that 896 municipalities were "possibly extinct cities," which shocked residents,local governments, and the central government as 49.8% of the entire municipalities, ornearly half of them, were "extinguishable." Faced with the problem of local extinction of theMasuda Report, the Abe administration set local creation as the top priority of its policy whenit launched its second cabinet in December 2012 and enacted and implemented the Village,People, and Job Creation Act in 2014 (referred to as the Local Creation Act). Similar to Japan's Masuda report, Korea also developed a local extinction index by theKorea Employment Information Service and based on it, 228 basic local governments acrossthe country are classified into local extinction risk areas and local extinction high-risk areas. According to this, as of February 2023, 118 out of 228 local governments nationwide were atrisk of extinction, accounting for 52% of the total cities, counties, and districts, and 51 wereat high risk of extinction with an extinction index value of less than 0.2. Now, local extinction is not a distant future story, but a real problem that will come soon,so if organizations, organizations, policies, financial investments, and legal systems are notprepared to diagnose and cope with the causes and problems of local extinction, there is arisk that local extinction will soon spread to a situation that will lead to a crisis in the country.