Citizens' Assessment of 5th Elected Term at 2-Year Mark: Overall 'Satisfaction,' Details 'Challenges'

In a "Citizens' Satisfaction Survey on the 5th Elected Term's Municipal Administration" conducted by the Suwon Civics and Economics Research Institute in July, citizens evaluated Mayor Yum Tae-young's administration with a score of 60 points or higher out of 100 (68.4%). Of these, 32.5% gave ratings of 80 points or above, indicating that Mayor Yum's two-year tenure has received relatively positive evaluation. Only 25.1% responded with scores below 60 points.

In the survey results announced at the "2-Year Diagnosis and Tasks Discussion Forum of the 5th Elected Term" held by the Suwon Civics and Economics Research Institute on the 10th, regarding whether the 5th elected term's municipal administration slogan "People are Welcome Here" resonated well, 45.8% responded with scores of 80 points or above, indicating that a significant number of citizens are forming consensus. Scores between 60-80 points accounted for 29.3%, while below 60 points was 21.3%.

While the 5th elected term's two-year municipal administration evaluation received generous overall assessment in the grand scheme, specific policy priorities and evaluations showed a mismatch between the vision presented by Mayor Yum and citizens' interests.

First, when asked to select two important strategic projects that Suwon City is pursuing, respondents chose job creation (29.3%), residential and urban environmental improvement (21.1%), education and cultural creation (9.2%), realization of equal society (8.9%), and fostering participation culture (6.8%), in order. Citizens showed less consensus regarding the low-carbon green city implementation (5.9%) and microscopic welfare realization (2.7%) that Mayor Yum is actively promoting.

Regarding the direction cities should pursue for a better Suwon, responses were in the order of regional economic revitalization city (32.4%), welfare city (31.5%), culture and tourism city (23.5%), and eco-friendly city (11.5%). In this manner, the eco-friendly city failed to generate relatively strong consensus among citizens compared to regional economic revitalization and welfare cities.

Regarding willingness to participate in resident participation programs such as participatory budgeting, community building, citizen jury courts, and resident-participated urban planning being implemented by Suwon City, responses showed willingness to participate (45.7%) was significant, but responses of "not sure" (31.4%) and "will not participate" (22.9%) exceeded the majority, suggesting that resident participation programs are limited to certain residents.

Additionally, regarding whether the integration of Suwon, Hwaseong, and Osan should continue to be pursued, responses were "should continue" (46.8%), "not sure" (27.1%), and "should stop" (26.1%). Regarding attracting a 10th professional baseball team, 63.8% of respondents expressed support.

The survey had 1,589 respondents, with a majority having resided in Suwon for 10 years or more, females, people in their 40s, high school graduates, and housewives.

The Suwon Civics and Economics Research Institute also conducted an ARS opinion poll simultaneously with the survey. In this opinion poll, when asked to compare Mayor Yum Tae-young's performance with his predecessor Mayor Kim Yong-seo, responses were "not much different" (31.6%), "Mayor Yum does much better" (24.1%), "does somewhat better" (20.3%), "actually does worse" (16.7%), "not sure" (4.8%), and "doing very poorly" (2.4%), in order. This evaluation showed that Mayor Yum is conducting municipal administration that is either comparable or somewhat better than his predecessor.

When asked whether they were aware of the 5th elected term's citizen commitment projects including the 10 major strategic tasks, responses were "don't know well" (52.1%), "know to some extent" (27.6%), "don't know at all" (14.7%), and "know very well" (5.6%), in order. This was analyzed as a result of Mayor Yum's citizen commitment projects being general and abstract, or not being visualized in a way that citizens can recognize.

When asked to score Mayor Yum's municipal administration, the distribution showed 60-80 points (45.9%), below 60 points (36.5%), and 80 points or above (17.6%), indicating overall lower satisfaction compared to the survey.

The ARS opinion poll had a total of 551 respondents, with regional distribution of Jangan-gu (29.8%), Gwonseon-gu (33%), Paldal-gu (27%), and Yeongdeungpo-gu (10.2%).

Park Wan-ki, secretary general of the Suwon Civics and Economics Research Institute, stated regarding this survey: "This survey was conducted randomly, making it difficult to apply sampling error based on accurate statistical techniques, and the results have limited significance as they reflect the general perception level of Suwon citizens."