Pocheon, a city in Gyeonggi Province, has launched its ninth popularly elected local government and set out to deliver changes that residents can feel in daily life. The city plans to build on the transportation, industry, education, and tourism foundations laid during the previous term.
"If the past four years were a time to confirm Pocheon's potential and lay the foundation for future growth, the ninth term will be a time to complete this and create a bigger future for Pocheon," Pocheon Mayor Baek Young-hyun said Wednesday.
The city presented five core tasks: creating a lifestyle-oriented garden city, building a K-AI advanced defense industry innovation cluster, strengthening future competitiveness centered on the Education Development Special Zone and the Peace Economic Special Zone, fostering sustainable smart agriculture and livestock farming, and expanding the metropolitan transportation network.
First, the city will build a neighborhood garden network that allows residents to reach a garden within a five-minute walk. It will convert vacant houses, leftover spaces, and idle sites in the old downtown into garden-style healing rest areas, and expand generation-tailored spaces such as ocher healing roads and health-longevity gardens.
As a key growth strategy, the city put forward the creation of the K-AI advanced defense industry innovation cluster. It plans to use the nation's largest-scale military training ground infrastructure to build an industrial ecosystem covering the entire defense cycle, from research and development to testing, evaluation, certification, and mass production.
In the education sector, the city will focus on upgrading the Education Development Special Zone. Since being selected as a pilot region for the Education Development Special Zone in 2024, Pocheon has secured 6.8 billion won in state funding over three years. It will expand educational infrastructure for future core technologies such as AI, drones, and coding.
The city will also expand its metropolitan transportation network. It has begun construction in earnest on the Okjeong-Pocheon section of Subway Line 7, and will enter talks with the central government to have the GTX-G line reflected in the Fifth National Railway Network Plan.
In addition, the city is pursuing the government's final designation of the Peace Economic Special Zone and the creation of a smart livestock complex. Pocheon plans to fulfill 149 campaign pledges promised to residents to realize "Pride Pocheon, a humanities city where my life is happy."
"I will make promises to residents the most important standard for running city affairs," Baek said. "I will create a Pocheon where youth chase their dreams, businesses grow, and all residents feel happiness and pride."
