Osan City Designated as Preliminary Cultural City by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

[Suwon Ilbo = Reporter Seo Dong-young] Osan City was designated as a preliminary Cultural City by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on the 30th.

The Cultural City is a national policy project promoted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Starting from 2018 through 2023, five local governments will be selected annually, and a total of 30 local governments will receive 10 billion won in project funds, consulting, and cultural urban regeneration projects over 5 years.

In the first phase of Cultural Cities in 2018, Bucheon City was designated in Gyeonggi Province. A total of 10 local governments including Daegu Metropolitan City were selected.

The city was the only one in Gyeonggi Province to prepare for the announcement of the second phase Cultural City preliminary designation in March 2019. It invited Yun Bong-taek, Director of the Cultural City Promotion Team of Seogwipo City, Jeju (designated as a first-phase preliminary city last year), and Lee Seung-wuk, Representative of Cooperative Planbe for Osan City Cultural City Promotion in Young-do District, Busan, to receive professional consulting. The city also benchmarked nearby Bucheon City, Cheonan City, and Cheongju City.

In particular, to create a cultural city where citizens are the main agents directly planning, participating, and engaging in activities, the city has organized citizen governance while sharing the experience and expertise gained from education city projects, and has continuously encouraged communication and participation.

The city also held a vision declaration ceremony titled 'Osan Cultural City Resonating with Connection.' It also prepared strategies to encompass citizen groups that could be marginalized due to academic and livelihood issues through the organization and operation of youth supporter groups and collaboration with the Youth Employment Center.

The city stated: "Although the goal of citizen-led cultural city promotion was vague, it was able to make a bold move for preliminary cultural city designation because it actively utilized the citizen governance composition and activities that became potential from Osan Mayor Kwak Sang-uk's more than 10-year promotion of educational cities."

It is also reported that four-term National Assemblyman An Min-seok, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Culture, Sports and Tourism, played a major role in the preliminary cultural city selection through extensive information and networks, as well as professional recruitment and consulting support.

Lee Dong-ryeol, Chairman of the Cultural City Promotion Committee who led the final presentation on the 13th, said: "I felt that the promotion of a cultural city can only be created entirely by the power of citizens," and "If the city, which has relatively scarce physical cultural resources compared to other local governments, is promoted based on intangible resources, that is, humanware, then it aligns with the goals of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and I glimpsed the hope that it could become a creative cultural city that is directly created rather than dependent on visible resources." He shared his impressions on the preliminary city designation.

A city official stated: "The city will promote cultural city specialization projects and preliminary projects over the course of 2020," and "Through the tripartite agreement made with Gyeonggi Province and Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation in August, we will make efforts to be designated as a main cultural city in 2020 through inter-agency collaboration and mutual support."