Pohang City Transforms into a 'Garden City' Connecting Urban Life and Nature

Greenway Project Achievements: Transforming the Image from a Carbon-Emitting City to a Carbon-Offset City
Green Axis at the Center, Enjoying Urban Infrastructure and Increasing Foot Traffic... Creating a Vibrant City

Pohang City is accelerating the Pohang Greenway Project with the slogan "A Garden City where the city and nature are connected in a pleasant garden" to be achieved by 2030.

Mayor Lee Gang-deok of Pohang explaining the plan for creating green spaces at the January press conference. Photo by Pohang City

Since 2017, the city has planted over 21.56 million trees through the "20 Million Trees of Life Planting Campaign," and has been certified for an annual reduction of 88 tons of carbon dioxide in five urban forests, successfully transforming its image from a carbon-emitting city to a carbon-offset city.

In particular, after the creation of the Pohang Railway Forest, a pedestrian-centered walking culture has formed, increasing foot traffic and generating an annual consumption effect of 434.7 billion KRW in local alley markets, along with an increase in new building constructions, leading to spontaneous urban regeneration.

Building on these achievements, Pohang City plans to focus its administrative efforts on the Greenway Project with three main directions: ▲ Establishing a Green Connector network linking forest paths and waterways ▲ Realizing a pedestrian-centered Compact City ▲ Securing urban resilience to respond to the climate crisis.

Specifically, the city will increase green space within the urban area by connecting residential, commercial, administrative, and cultural facilities through green corridors, creating an urban environment where citizens can enjoy daily life, work, and leisure by walking along forest and water paths, while making every effort to achieve carbon neutrality.

Accordingly, this year, the city will expand linear green spaces and create large parks covering one million pyeong (private park special project 2,073,000㎡, self-managed park 1,362,000㎡) to increase green space within the city and realize a "city within a garden" where forests and gardens can be encountered everywhere.

Additionally, by restoring Haksan Stream, the city will connect Pohang Railway Forest, Dongbin Naru, Pohang Canal, and Hyeongsan River, and create pedestrian-centered streets along Posco-daero to establish a people-centered circular green corridor.

Pohang Cheolgil Forest.

Furthermore, green safe forests will be created at Jangseong and Donghae Elementary Schools to improve the school commute environment, and walking-friendly Pohang will be developed by creating urban forest paths along Naengcheon Stream, the Yeonil Daljeonji trail, and the Saengjiri ecological waterway forest path.

A disaster-prevention urban forest covering 20,000㎡ will be established in the Ocheon Naengcheon area, and urban forests will be created in the Haedo-dong living area behind the industrial complex to expand carbon sinks and enhance climate change resilience.

Along with this, safe forest paths will be developed around the Bokyeongsa cultural heritage site, the Homibando Forest Welfare Complex project will continue, and the city will approach citizens as a green attractive city where they can enjoy leisure and fun through projects such as the replacement construction of dangerous sections along the 112 km coastal trail, landscape improvement of beach promenades, and expansion of barefoot walking infrastructure.

Moreover, based on achievements such as winning the Asia Urban Landscape Award and certification from the UK Green Flag Award, Pohang plans to continue exchanges with advanced cities in overseas urban greening fields and use this as a stepping stone to promote Pohang's transformation into a green city.

Mayor Lee Kang-deok stated, "Pohang City is playing a leading role in responding to climate change by transitioning from a carbon-emitting city to a carbon-offset city through the Greenway Project," and added, "We will create a vibrant city by increasing pedestrian foot traffic and enjoying urban infrastructure while walking along forest paths centered on the Greenway green corridor."

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