The Forces Around Administration, Politics, and the City
Usually, once you've stirred up one big issue, responding to every other problem becomes difficult. That's why most administrators start with the small things, solving them step by step and pushing change forward in increments.
I had no intention of following that playbook.
Right now I'm setting off problems left and right, inside the administration and out — and running all of it at once.
Why? The reason is simple.
Because that way, everyone ends up buried in work with no time to complain — not even a moment for it.
Administration, by its nature, is a structure that sinks easily into inertia and habit. People fear new change and prefer to move within the systems they already know. So the moment you attempt reform, unconditional resistance follows.
"Why does this have to happen so fast?"
"Shouldn't we be taking things one step at a time?"
"Can you actually handle pushing this much through all at once?"
It would have been stranger if those words didn't come up. But I know: run it any other way, and in the end you can't accomplish anything at all.
The moment debate opens over a single problem, administration grinds to a halt. Meetings, reports, follow-up studies, opinion-gathering... A few months pass like that, nothing has been decided, and in the end everything reverts to the way it was. I have no intention of accepting that outcome.
So I've decided to leave people not even a crack to complain through. While everyone is buried in work and scrambling to adapt, the structure itself will already have changed. That is my strategy.
What's happening in the old downtown right now is no different. The Car-Free Street project has launched, the plaza and park work is underway, and the public architecture plan has gotten off the ground in earnest.
But the success or failure of all of it hinges on speed. The most dangerous moment in any attempt at change is the middle stage — no visible results yet, and meanwhile the inconvenience from construction only keeps growing. That is exactly when people erupt with their loudest complaints.
"What is the point of any of this?"
"It's actually more inconvenient now!"
"Aren't we just throwing money away?"
And when those complaints swell, the project wobbles. Opposition councilors rise up in arms, the local press piles on, and the problem balloons. Once the controversy spreads like that, the whole thing grinds to a stop in the end.
I won't give them that opening. So I'll push even faster — so fast that no one has time to say it's "inconvenient." I'll make them watch the change unfold right before their eyes, and see for themselves that a little patience brings results.
The moment one plan begins, another project spins up alongside it. Administration normally plays defense; I'm moving on the attack.
Why push so hard, so recklessly? Because that's how it has to be done right now. Creating change takes speed, and this is the moment to push through, no matter what resistance comes.
Time slipped by, and a week had passed before I knew it. Today was the day we would hold the residents' briefing session on the old downtown regeneration master plan.
I headed for a meeting hall in the old city center alongside the three public architects — Kang Seo-jin, Yoon Yi-hyun, and Jo Min-hyuk. We weren't going simply to present a plan. We had to sit down with the residents themselves, reconcile opinions on the ground, and shape a better direction together.
The hall was already filling with residents when we arrived, and among them one familiar face caught my eye.
Councilor Bang Ji-hoo.
A city councilor with the United Korea Party — and the man who represented this very district. His reason for showing up today was obvious: to plant in the residents' minds the impression that he had some hand in this project.
As a member of the opposition, he sat beyond the reach of my father's influence — National Assemblyman Yeo Byeong-guk. For a man like Bang Ji-hoo to survive the next election, what he needed above all was presence. He had to display his influence in front of the residents somehow, and for that the most convenient target was me — the young mayor.
If there was even one thing I'd done that he could seize on, he would use it as a pretext to attack, then convert it into political capital to shore up his own position. But today, I intended to hand him no thread to pull.
The hall gradually filled with people. Residents who had been skeptical at first drifted in one by one, and the faces of the old downtown's merchant representatives had noticeably changed.
I stepped inside through the entrance, trading brief greetings as I went. Before I'd even taken my seat, a few merchants came up to talk.
"Mayor, business has actually been pretty good these past few days."
I asked, intrigued.
"Business is suddenly good, you say?"
Another merchant beside him chimed in.
"Honestly, I was worried sick at first. The moment I heard 'car-free street,' I figured we were finished. But once the construction started, people started flocking in instead."
"Exactly! They hear the road's being torn up and everyone gets curious. They come out to see it, and while they're wandering around they stop in at the shops, grab a coffee, sit down for a meal before heading home."
I nodded quietly to myself. This kind of reaction had come faster than I'd expected. Normally it takes a fair stretch of time before people start to feel a car-free street's benefits firsthand, but this time the mood was already shifting just one week after construction began.
Still, problems remained.
"But you know, Mayor..."
One merchant broached the subject carefully.
"People are coming, but the street feels so bleak."
"That's right. Right now it's nothing but a torn-up floor. There's no sense of anything put together. The street has to get cleaner, the atmosphere better — that's what makes people stay longer, isn't it?"
I pictured the street as it stood. Everything done so far amounted to tearing up the road at both entrances and at the midpoint. Nothing had been formally refitted yet; the road was still bare asphalt from end to end. People came, but there was nowhere to linger, and even walking down it felt somehow off.
I nodded and smiled.
"Good. Then today, let's talk about solving exactly that problem."
After a short opening address, I handed the floor straight to the three public architects, and Kang Seo-jin stepped forward.
Naturally, I assumed he'd bring up a presentation screen and walk everyone through the drawings. What happened instead was nothing of the sort. He closed his laptop, took the microphone, and said:
"Today isn't a session for me to explain anything. It's a session for me to listen to you. So please, make yourselves comfortable and speak your minds."
The residents looked briefly nonplussed, but soon hands began going up one after another.
"I'd like some space in front of our shop where people can actually sit."
"Please give some thought to the walkway connecting us to the traditional market, too."
"A few more street trees would help. It wouldn't feel so barren."
After listening to the residents for about twenty minutes, Kang Seo-jin spoke again.
"We'll take everything you've said and come back next time with a fuller picture — concept sketches and renderings. I believe this process of building it together is what matters."
It was exactly the approach I wanted. Most experts draw up their plans as if they were gods, then inform the residents, "This is how it will be done." The problem is, those experts don't live in the neighborhood and don't really understand its circumstances. They've simply studied more; there's no guarantee that what they know actually fits the place.
But today, Kang Seo-jin — together with Yoon Yi-hyun and Jo Min-hyuk — had said they would listen first and set the direction after. Of course, they already had beautiful images in their heads. But they wouldn't force them on anyone; they'd hear the residents out and adjust. That attitude is what actually changes a city.
The meeting seemed to be winding down. The residents had been heard, and Kang Seo-jin had promised to consolidate the direction going forward. All that remained was to close things out gracefully.
That was when it happened.
"Hold on just a moment."
Councilor Bang Ji-hoo raised his hand and cut in.
"I'm sorry, but isn't revitalizing the street the more urgent matter here? You should be thinking about landing a complex shopping mall, or redeveloping the whole block from the ground up — what is all this pie-in-the-sky nonsense?"
His tone was pure aggression. He jabbed a finger as he pressed the attack.
"Are you people even experts?"
I laughed inwardly.
He's moving exactly on cue.
The reason Councilor Bang was acting this way was obvious. If the room kept drifting along in this pleasant, agreeable mood, he'd walk away looking like a man who had contributed nothing. Unacceptable — for him. So he was deliberately playing the contrarian, raising his voice to make himself heard. It was, frankly, a humiliating posture for a man of his standing: rudely cornering experts in front of the whole room.
But to my surprise, Kang Seo-jin handled it with perfect composure. He picked the microphone back up and answered, unhurried.
"Councilor, the era when putting up a big building counted as the automatic solution is already behind us. What matters now isn't what building you construct — it's how that building gets used."
Councilor Bang Ji-hoo snorted.
"Pretty words. But don't you need large facilities like a complex shopping mall before the local economy actually turns?"
Kang Seo-jin didn't waver an inch.
"A big shopping mall can revive a city — or it can kill the existing commercial district instead. What matters right now isn't simply filling a plot with a 'big building.' It's how we turn that space into a more attractive place. And that is precisely the Car-Free Street project we're discussing today."
The residents began to nod.
"What matters more than a giant building is how people move through it and what stories they create inside it. That's why we're here listening to the residents first, and designing the space around what we hear."
I quietly scanned the hall. The residents were already warming to Kang Seo-jin's words.
The problem was Councilor Bang Ji-hoo. He wasn't opposed on principle; he simply wanted his presence felt.
And if I stepped in personally to rebut him in this setting? He'd gain exactly the justification he wanted to attack the mayor. From then on, he'd raise objections to every policy I put forward and trip me at every turn.
So I had to play this carefully. I stepped forward quietly, keeping my tone neutral.
"Councilor Bang makes a fair point. If a city is to develop, large facilities are obviously part of the picture, and we do need to consider how they can coexist with the existing commercial district."
I deliberately spoke as though setting him back on his feet. If he were flattened completely in this room, his backlash would only get worse. Then I pivoted, naturally, to our own plan.
"In fact, the direction you're describing is already part of our plan. Along with the parking facilities architect Yoon Yi-hyun has proposed, we're also factoring in the complex shopping mall currently in the works."
The hall went quiet. Councilor Bang Ji-hoo's demeanor shifted all at once, and he turned to look at me. I added:
"What matters now isn't development for its own sake — it's how we put that space to more effective use. Linking the street revitalization already underway with the new shopping mall, and changing the flow of the city as a whole — that's the heart of this project. So we'll take everything discussed today and move forward on expanding it."
Councilor Bang seemed to mull it over for a moment, then finally nodded.
"In that case... I'd like to see the details."
I smiled.
"Of course. I'd be glad to have you join the discussions, Councilor."
God, I hated saying that. But a rotten man is best kept close, where you can keep a proper eye on him.
After the briefing ended, people filed out of the hall one by one. I traded a few parting greetings and was sorting through the meeting materials when Section Chief Cho Yeon-woo approached, looked at me carefully, and spoke in a low voice.
"Thank you, Mayor."
I chuckled.
"For what?"
He glanced around the room once, then lowered his voice further.
"If Councilor Bang had been publicly dressed down in there, he'd have hounded us over this issue time and again. Or he'd have dug up some other pretext just to torment city administration."
I nodded quietly.
"Exactly. Thanks to you stepping in the way you did, the rest of us can finally breathe."
I gazed out the window in silence. He was right. Councilor Bang Ji-hoo had come today merely to flex his presence, and had very nearly caught a backlash from the very residents he'd been performing for.
Among those in the hall were the district's elders, merchant representatives, and more than a few genuinely influential figures. And he'd stood in front of all of them, jabbing his finger at the mayor and the experts for no good reason. If I had pressed him hard right then, he'd have lost face — and quite possibly the district's trust along with it.
Not that I'd made that choice for his sake. Frankly, I couldn't have cared less whether he took political wounds or not. The problem was that if he did, I was the one who'd end up worn down — me, and every official in City Hall with me. And my quiet revenge might be delayed. Right now, I needed to bide my time, watching for the chance to land a blow he'd never see coming.
Because of course he wouldn't simply retreat in silence. He'd find some other angle to nitpick the administration and throw sand in the gears. And then Yeojin City's civil servants would be dragged into an endless political brawl, unable to do the work they were actually here to do.
I turned to Section Chief Cho Yeon-woo.
"Well — it's not as though I did it because I wanted to."
Cho nodded with a wry smile.
"That's politics for you."
I let out a sigh. The truth was, I'd become mayor because I wanted to do urban planning well — not to fight political skirmishes. And yet here I was, fussing over every last one of these petty details.
Ha... I'd love it if someone would just handle this part for me.