Yeongdeungpo Designated as the 3rd Preliminary Cultural City... The Only One in Seoul

Designated by the Ministry of Culture, Selected as a Preliminary Project Site for the 3rd Cultural City... The Only and First in Seoul... Scheduled to be Officially Designated as a Legal Cultural City in 2022 after the 2021 Preliminary Project Period... Yeongdeungpo's Rich Cultural and Artistic Resources, Technological Capabilities, and Potential Proven

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Yeongdeungpo-gu (Mayor Chae Hyun-il) has been selected as a preliminary project site for the 3rd phase of cultural city creation, hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Following 2018, a total of 41 local governments nationwide submitted development plans for the third round of cultural city designation applications. After thorough evaluations including document reviews and on-site inspections, a total of 10 cities, including Yeongdeungpo, were finally selected as preliminary cities.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s ‘Cultural City Creation Project’ is a comprehensive support program that actively discovers and utilizes cultural resources with unique local characteristics based on culture and arts, enabling regions to independently plan and realize their own cultural environments.

With this preliminary cultural city selection, the district plans to actively implement the preliminary project for cultural city creation for one year starting January 2021. If finally designated as a ‘legal cultural city,’ from 2022 to 2026, it will receive administrative support along with a budget of up to 20 billion KRW, including 10 billion KRW in national funds, to promote full-scale cultural city development projects.

If Yeongdeungpo is selected as the final cultural city, it aims to create a regionally specialized cultural city that maximizes Yeongdeungpo’s unique characteristics, such as promoting ecological culture development utilizing waterfront resources like Anyangcheon, Dorimcheon, and Yeouido Saetgang, and creating future convergence cultural values combining technology and arts.

Since 2018, the district has been progressively promoting related projects under the basic direction of ‘Everyone’s Cultural City Yeongdeungpo.’

The approved cultural city creation plan for Yeongdeungpo this year presents the vision of ‘A Neighbor of Friendship and Hospitality, a Diverse Cultural Production City Yeongdeungpo,’ and includes 21 categories of project plans to share and develop core values of ‘cultural governance, cultural sharing, cultural diversity, and ecological culture’ based on cultural public forums at the living area level.

Additionally, the district has continuously promoted pilot projects such as ▲civil-government communication and cooperative administration based on the Yeongdeungpo Shared Roundtable, which has been used as a cultural public forum ▲cultural urban regeneration ▲activation of art activity hubs ▲organization of waterfront exploration teams ▲and spreading the value of cultural diversity.

Through the Yeongdeungpo Cultural Foundation, a district-affiliated institution, efforts have been made to establish integrated cultural policies and cooperative systems so that each project and value can be manifested as the city’s philosophy and culture.

In particular, during the preparation process for this cultural city designation, interviews were conducted by visiting residents directly to collect more diverse and rich ideas and to incorporate vivid residents’ opinions into the plan.

The district explained that by listening to diverse opinions from a wide range of fields, it was able to secure innovative and feasible ideas and project momentum.

With the approval of this cultural city creation plan, the district plans to enter full-scale project implementation in 2021, where more private entities recognize each other as cultural agents and create a cultural city based on cultural public forums.

Chae Hyun-il, Mayor of Yeongdeungpo-gu, stated, “Taking this cultural city selection as an opportunity, Yeongdeungpo will strive even harder to become a distinguished cultural city where not only the cityscape changes and economic development occur, but also the residents’ lifestyles culturally flourish, as a historically significant ancestral home south of the Han River.”

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