'Reimagining Urban Spaces Through Gardens with a Creative Eye
3 Major Special Zones and Green Bio Industry, Ecological City Economic Landscape'
Jeonnam Suncheon City, which presented a standard model for future-oriented small and medium-sized cities through the 2023 Garden Expo, is achieving outstanding results across its administration in 2024 as well.
The city structure transformed through creative ideas and perspectives using gardens as a means has been internationally recognized, and attempts to change the urban economic landscape by fostering industries that preserve the identity of an ecological city are progressing smoothly.
Additionally, the vision of becoming a ‘cultural industry mecca’ that turns back the city’s age based on cultural content is rapidly materializing, marked by the Global Content Festival.
After five months of maintenance following the Garden Expo, Suncheon City unveiled the Suncheonman National Garden, which combines gardens with digital technology, in April this year. The national garden, unveiled under the concept of ‘Suncheon where even astronauts visit,’ welcomed visitors equipped with new content such as Space Hub and Space Bridge, along with gardens featuring characters from the webtoon Yumi’s Cells and the EBS animation Dudadadung.
The newly revamped national garden, designed for enjoyment by three generations, has attracted 3.7 million visitors over seven months since its reopening this year, continuing its popularity. The city is establishing and implementing various welfare policies to ensure that the ‘Garden Money’ earned from the garden returns to the citizens, and plans to actively use these funds for vulnerable groups in the 2025 budget allocation.
2024 marked the year when the Ocheon Green Square, created as a result of the expo, firmly established itself as a hangout spot for citizens. The square saw continuous foot traffic from citizens enjoying exercise, picnics, and barefoot walking, and abundant cultural events were held on weekends. This year, diverse events such as the cheering event for Nam Suhyun, a Suncheon City Hall athlete who won gold and silver medals at the Paris Olympics, the large-scale music concert ‘7080 Garden Rock Festival,’ ‘Beer Festa,’ ‘Global Content Festival,’ as well as the ‘Dangdang Run Festival’ and ‘Pet Culture Festival’ took place at Ocheon Green Square and Green Island.
These two spaces maximized their utilization value through creative ideas that transformed retention ponds and roads into gardens, and are evaluated as spaces that embody Suncheon’s urban philosophy centered on people and ecology. In July this year, they received the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Award at the Korea Land Awards, and in November, they won the grand prize at the prestigious Asia Urban Landscape Awards.
Suncheon City was selected last year as a cultural city special zone by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, followed by designation as an Opportunity Development Special Zone by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and an Education Development Special Zone by the Ministry of Education, totaling three special zones. These three zones, along with the metropolitan city-targeted Urban Convergence Special Zone, correspond to the four major special zones promoted by the Local Era Committee for local decentralization.
The city plans to secure quality jobs by laying the groundwork for domestic and international anchor companies to settle in Suncheon through the Opportunity Development Special Zone, and to support tailored talent employment in local companies by linking the Education Development Special Zone with Glocal30. Through cultural city projects, various citizen participation programs and events will be promoted so that local residents can enjoy high-quality cultural experiences in their daily lives without having to go to the metropolitan area.
Meanwhile, the project to develop Seungju-eup area as a green bio-industry base is also progressing smoothly after passing the central investment review in July this year. The Jeonnam-type Balanced Development 300 Project, with a total budget of 30 billion KRW, is a project to establish the foundation for the bio-industry, including the distribution platform support for smart farms and the establishment of the nation’s first bio-conversion GMP-certified factory. By 2026, the city plans to invest 32 billion KRW to build a green bio-specialized knowledge industry center equipped with 30 company spaces and apartment-style factory facilities. The city expects that if the green bio-industry successfully settles in the Seungju-gun area, about 700 jobs will be created and the population will increase by approximately 400 people.
As part of the Cultural City Special Zone project, the 1st Global Content Festival held on the 2nd and 3rd of this month was an event that truly confirmed Suncheon City’s vision and capabilities as a cultural industry mecca. The fairy-tale-like event, featuring the nation’s largest drone show and high-quality animation screenings, which are rarely seen even in the metropolitan area, attracted 200,000 visitors who filled Ocheon Green Square, with notable participation from children, youth, and young to middle-aged adults interested in cultural content.
Also, the chairman of the Ansi Animation Festival organizing committee attended the event and promised friendly exchanges with Suncheon City. Following the announcement of the headquarters relocation to Suncheon by anchor companies in the webtoon sector, ‘Kenaz’ and ‘Ono Korea,’ the animation cluster development project, which passed the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s central investment review last month, is expected to proceed swiftly. The city plans to actively attract about 30 content companies that have expressed relocation intentions to create a content creation and production base in the old downtown area and to develop a vibrant, youthful old downtown where culture breathes.
Mayor Noh Gwan-gyu of Suncheon said, “Suncheon aims to provide answers to young people who wandered because there was no nest in Seoul and no food in the provinces,” adding, “We will show Suncheon City as a city with a $40,000 income era, a city worthy of spending youth in, and even more reliable for middle-aged and elderly people.”
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