"Let's Revive the Dying Daegu Dongseong-ro" ... 'Ongi School' Held with Participation of 72 University Students Nationwide

Projects for Commercial Area Revitalization and More

Daegu City will hold the ‘On-gi School in Daegu Dongseong-ro,’ a 2-night, 3-day event where local governments, universities, and industries collaborate, in the Dongseong-ro area starting December 1.

‘On-gi School’ is a ‘local problem-solving project’ where university students gather in the city center to freely generate new ideas and solve community issues to revitalize declining downtown areas. It began in 2019 in Onyang, Chungnam, and after passing through Yeongcheon, Gyeongbuk; Jeonju, Jeonbuk; and Naju, Jeonnam, this year’s event will be held in Daegu Dongseong-ro.

Daegu Dongseong-ro Onggi School Event Poster.

This event involves 72 students from nine universities nationwide, including local universities such as Keimyung University and Yeungnam University. To enhance the quality of the 2-night, 3-day educational program, participating students will engage in pre-event online education and workshops to understand the history and value of Dongseong-ro and share local innovation cases.

The program is divided into four projects: tourism revitalization, youth culture revival, alley economy and commercial district revitalization, and urban space restructuring. In particular, students will actively explore the market and seek solutions by conducting on-site interviews for analyzing the Dongseong-ro commercial district.

On December 3, outstanding ideas will be awarded prizes such as the Daegu City Council Chairman’s Award and the Keimyung University President’s Award during the final presentation.

To address the decline in downtown areas including Dongseong-ro, Daegu City announced the ‘Dongseong-ro Renaissance Project’ last June and is accelerating efforts to revitalize the city center by transforming vacant downtown spaces into culture- and experience-oriented areas for young people.

In particular, Daegu City has reached a consensus with local universities that revitalizing the declining downtown requires utilizing the city center as an educational space to create opportunities for startups and workforce development. Accordingly, it is carrying out a project to create an integrated campus for local universities by converting vacant downtown spaces into integrated lecture rooms and on-site training rooms.

Dongsung-ro, the downtown area of Daegu.

The ‘Downtown Campus Town Development Project,’ which promotes coexistence between commercial areas and campuses to enhance mutual synergy, will begin with a pilot project in 2024 and expand to create a Dongseong-ro Campus Street and develop into a campus town in 2025.

Song Ki-chan, Director of the Youth and Women’s Education Bureau of Daegu City, said, “We look forward to students’ free and diverse proposals so that Daegu Dongseong-ro can once again become a bustling street full of youth.” He added, “The students’ innovative ideas will be reflected in future policies to revitalize Dongseong-ro.”

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