Dongdaemun-gu Shares Outcomes of Overseas Business Trip... "Connection Is the Core Value"

Sharing of Overseas Cases in Education, Culture, and Urban Planning

Dongdaemun-gu in Seoul (District Mayor Lee Pilhyung) announced on the 21st that it held the "2025 Overseas Official Business Trip Outcome Sharing Session" for the Departments of Education Policy, Culture and Tourism, and Urban Planning at the district office on the 18th.

This sharing session was organized to present outstanding overseas case studies in the fields of education, culture, and urban planning from the United States (Portland, Chicago, New York) and Japan (Tokyo), and to discuss practical ways to incorporate these examples into Dongdaemun-gu's policies.

The session focused on "Link" as its core keyword, centering on how education and the local community, culture and public spaces, and urban spaces and citizens' lives can be organically connected.

The Department of Education Policy introduced creative education cases from Portland, where schools and the local community are closely connected, and identified school fence improvement, pedestrian safety, and strengthening teacher incentives as key tasks. The Department of Culture and Tourism examined the connection between arts, culture, and public value based on public art and urban regeneration cases in Chicago and New York.

The Department of Urban Planning shared strategies for pedestrian-centered structural transformation, three-dimensional urban space composition, and urban regeneration methods involving cooperation between the private and public sectors, using examples from Shibuya and Midtown in Tokyo.

District Mayor Lee Pilhyung emphasized, "The core of this overseas trip was 'connection.' The sustainability and competitiveness of a city depend on how education and the local community, culture and public spaces, and urban spaces and citizens' lives are linked." He added, "A city is not a space of single functions, but one completed through the organic connection of multiple functions, and we were able to confirm the practical possibilities of this during the trip."

Mayor Lee further stated, "The value of such connection is at the heart of Dongdaemun-gu's vision of a Walking City. It is an urban strategy that goes beyond simply improving the walking environment to organically connect spaces, functions, and people. To realize this, Dongdaemun-gu is pursuing policies centered on three pillars: a city of spatial innovation, a growing city, and an educating city."

Going forward, Dongdaemun-gu plans to continue implementing policies that organically connect the city's spaces, functions, and people, with "connection" as its core value.