BUSAN — Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo is stepping up a hands-on approach to city government, visiting all 206 neighborhoods in person to resolve day-to-day problems rather than working from City Hall. By checking residents' complaints alongside district offices and linking them directly to solutions and budget support on the spot, he is shifting the center of gravity of the administration toward the areas where residents live.
According to the Busan Metropolitan Government, Jeon visited Seo District and Yeongdo District on the 21st as the second stop on the "206 Neighborhood On-Site Communication Project" of his term. Following visits to Dong District and Jung District on the 15th of this month, he is making consecutive visits to the old downtown area, putting into full operation a cooperative framework in which the city and district offices jointly resolve local issues.
In Seo District, he visited the Seo District Community Welfare Center, the Cheonmasan observatory complex, the Ami water reservoir and Songdo Beach in turn. He reviewed progress on projects directly tied to residents' daily lives, including improvements to the welfare center's parking lot and facility safety, the Cheonmasan observatory complex and tourist monorail project, the conversion of the upper part of the Ami reservoir into a park, and improvements to the pedestrian environment at Songdo Beach.
In Yeongdo, he visited the X-Sports Plaza on the Namhang shoreline and the Dongsam-dong intersection to discuss expanding community sports facilities and improving the traffic system. Key agenda items included refurbishing existing sports facilities, building a new sports park and introducing a roundabout at the Dongsam-dong intersection in response to rising traffic volume. Projects identified on site will be followed up jointly by the city and district offices, with budget support to be provided if necessary.
The mayor is also broadening the scope of on-site administration. On the same day, he had lunch with residents at Dooly Sikdang, a 33-year-old restaurant in Dongsam-dong, Yeongdo District, designated as a "good-price" establishment, listening to concerns about living costs and conditions facing small business owners. Park Young-jong, who runs the restaurant, has served as a neighborhood representative since 2013 and has continued to distribute free side dishes to older adults living alone. Jeon was scheduled to present a plaque on site in support of good-price establishments.
Starting from a city-district cooperation meeting held on the 3rd of this month, the city will visit all 16 districts and counties in sequence by the end of the year. It also plans to hold regional town hall meetings in parallel, connecting the day-to-day issues raised on site to policy and budget decisions.
"The city and the districts are one, and in the places where citizens live there is no dividing line between City Hall and the district office," Jeon said. "By visiting every corner of the 206 neighborhoods to hear residents' voices and running an administration that always responds, I will bring change to citizens' daily lives."
