Yisang-il, Mayor of Yongin, Visits Bilbao, Spain to Benchmark Urban Regeneration

"Revitalizing Through Urban Regeneration Amid Steel Industry Decline... Lessons for Many Cities"

Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province announced on the 24th that Mayor Lee Sang-il, who is visiting Spain, visited Bilbao, the capital of the Basque Country in northern Spain, on the 23rd (local time) and met with Amaia Arregi, Acting Mayor of Bilbao, to hear about the city's successful urban regeneration experiences and discuss ways to promote exchange and cooperation with Yongin.

Lee Sang-il, Mayor of Yongin (second from left), who visited Bilbao, Spain, is exchanging opinions on urban regeneration with Amaia Arregi, Acting Mayor of Bilbao (fourth from left).
[Photo by Yongin City]

Bilbao is considered a representative city that has succeeded in urban regeneration through attracting the Guggenheim Museum and promoting smart city projects. After the decline of the steel and shipbuilding industries since the 1970s, which caused massive unemployment and rapid urban decay, the city underwent a dramatic transformation with the opening of the Guggenheim Museum designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry in 1997.

Through urban regeneration projects, Bilbao demolished abandoned factories around shipyards and ports located in the city center, purified the polluted Nervion River, creating riverside promenades and parks that citizens frequently visit, and established museums and concert halls along the riverbank, drastically changing the city's aesthetics and functionality.

Mayor Lee said, "Bilbao, once the largest steel city in Spain, faced urban hollowing out due to the decline of the steel industry in the late 20th century, but it regained vitality through urban regeneration and industrial restructuring, which will provide great lessons to many cities around the world."

He also said, "Since Yongin is developing a semiconductor-specialized new town where many young IT talents will settle, there will be much to communicate and cooperate with Bilbao, which is transforming into a smart city."

Acting Mayor Arregi responded, "I am well aware of Yongin's remarkable development so far, and I hope that by exchanging wisdom in the future, we can promote the joint development of the two cities."