Gwangmyeong Mayor Park Seung-won: "Central Government Must Establish Strong Foundation for Local Governments to Pursue Sustainable Policies"

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Yu Je-seong] Gwangmyeong Mayor Park Seung-won stated that the central government and experts must establish a foundation to enable local governments to strategically pursue policies that strengthen regional resilience.

Mayor Park made the remarks on the 23rd while participating as a panelist in the local government roundtable session of the '2025 16th Asia Future Forum' held at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Mayor Park said, "For local governments to continue sustainable growth, strong and consistent policy implementation is necessary," and added, "The central government and experts must strategically establish a policy foundation to enhance the practical execution capacity of local governments."

He continued, "Gwangmyeong City places the core of strengthening regional resilience in 'the power of local communities' and is implementing policies accordingly," explaining, "Led by local autonomy, the city is implementing policies centered on six core sustainable values—lifelong learning, climate crisis response, resource circulation, social economy, and garden city—to enable residents to participate as subjects in solving local issues."

Gwangmyeong City has established residents' autonomous councils in all districts and is expanding citizen participation platforms including 500-person roundtable discussions and public forums. Additionally, as part of lifelong learning initiatives, the city is fostering local activists through civic universities who can learn and practice the values of sustainable cities, while strengthening citizen capacity.

Particularly in the climate crisis response sector, the city is actively pursuing citizen-participatory carbon neutrality policies, and has established a resource circulation system that is the foundation of carbon reduction, earning recognition as a best practice model among local governments nationwide.

Furthermore, the city is fostering social enterprises and cooperatives to expand the social economy ecosystem and creating a foundation for community asset development where local resources circulate and grow within the region. Through garden city policies where citizen gardeners create gardens throughout the city, the city is enhancing the quality of sustainable urban spaces.

Mayor Park said, "As a result of consistently implementing policies toward sustainability across various sectors including environment, economy, and society, Gwangmyeong City is gaining external recognition and achieving tangible results," and added, "Going forward, together with citizens, we will continue to strongly pursue sustainable city policies without stopping."

Meanwhile, Gwangmyeong City ranked first overall and first in the environmental sector in the '2025 Regional Resilience Evaluation' conducted by the Korean Institute for Social and Economic Futures, which comprehensively evaluated all 226 basic local governments nationwide across three sectors—△environment △economy △society—and 10 subcategories with 38 detailed indicators.