Busan City Holds First Non-Face-to-Face Video Discussion with Citizen Planning Group

150 Citizens Establish '2040 Busan Urban Master Plan'
Nation's First Citizen Planning Group Introduces Remote Video Discussions

Busan City Hall.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Busan City will hold a discussion forum with 148 participants from the ‘4th Citizen Planning Group’ on the 8th at 2 p.m., conducted nationwide for the first time via a non-face-to-face video conferencing method.

The Citizen Planning Group was publicly recruited to establish the ‘2040 Busan Urban Master Plan,’ a future guideline for Busan. Following the inauguration ceremony on the 25th of last month, the group will begin full-scale activities starting with this first discussion forum.

The discussion forum will be held on the 7th floor of the Construction Hall at Busan National University from 2 p.m. on the 8th. The Citizen Planning Group members will participate in the meeting online by installing video conferencing programs on their personal mobile phones or laptops.

During the meeting, citizens will freely exchange opinions mainly on the topic of ‘What must Busan City absolutely protect?’

Based on this, the second discussion forum on the 22nd will derive issues and future vision keywords based on Busan’s past, present, and future strengths and weaknesses. Subsequently, through the third and fourth discussions, a comprehensive vision for the 2040 Busan Urban Master Plan will be presented.

In particular, this Citizen Planning Group is expected to become a new model of citizen participation in the COVID-19 era as an ‘O2O (On-line TO Off-line) Citizen Planning Group,’ combining non-face-to-face (online) meetings and face-to-face (offline) meetings.

Choi Dae-kyung, Director of the Urban Planning Office of Busan City, said, “Through the successful progress of this 150-person non-face-to-face video discussion, we will seek new cases of citizen participation.”

The Citizen Planning Group was composed of a total of 150 members, including 100 citizen representatives selected through public recruitment in June and 50 foreigners, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and civic group members residing in Busan.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.