Hands That Draw the City
Yoon Yi-hyun advanced to the next slide and carried on with her explanation. The time for emotional appeal was over; now came the turn for hard-headed, practical logic.
"What we want is not a large-scale construction project that drags on for years. It has to be fast, effective, and beneficial to everyone."
The screen showed the stream's current state once more: a narrow channel of water, with a broad road and parking lots sprawled alongside it. She traced that section with her finger as she spoke.
"The Yeojin Stream is currently about thirty meters wide. Restoring a stream of this size doesn't need to take years. If we inflate the project and pour in an excessive budget, the construction only drags on longer and deals a serious blow to the local commercial district. We need to aim for low cost and high efficiency."
When she advanced the slide, a simplified schematic of the road structure appeared.
"This road currently operates as four lanes, two in each direction. But our traffic analysis showed that a single lane each way is enough to keep vehicles flowing. In other words, if we narrow the existing road and devote that space to stream restoration and walking paths, the city naturally returns to its citizens."
Several residents watched the screen with evident interest. But the moment road narrowing came up, some of the merchants began to murmur—they worried that cutting a four-lane road down would hurt vehicle access to their shops.
As if she had anticipated exactly this, Yoon Yi-hyun continued with a gentle smile.
"You all remember the Car-Free Street project, don't you? Right now, the stretch between the Car-Free Street and the Yeojin Stream is blocked off by road, so the two commercial districts never connect. But once this stream restoration is complete, the spaces will link up naturally. Once people can move about more freely, this area will become an extension of the Car-Free Street itself."
She brought up a new image: a bird's-eye rendering of the space that would connect to the Car-Free Street after the restoration. People strolled along the street, tables stood here and there, and small rest areas had been tucked in front of the shops. Cafes, little eateries, and craft workshops blended together in easy harmony, creating an entirely new atmosphere.
When this scene appeared, a quiet stir of admiration ran through the established merchants. Until now, the project had been framed purely as a matter of 'development' and 'compensation,' but seeing the actual picture, they grasped intuitively that it stood a good chance of helping their businesses.
Even so, a few faces remained ambivalent. Those who ran vehicle-related businesses in particular wore worried looks.
Yoon Yi-hyun didn't miss those reactions and added:
"Of course, not everyone stands to gain from this change. Some businesses, such as auto repair shops, may find it hard to stay in their current locations as vehicle access falls off. But it's also true that the repair industry has been consolidating into larger shops and drifting out toward the outskirts in recent years."
A few people nodded as if that rang true.
"From what we've gathered, many of the repair shops in this area are already weighing a move because of space constraints and rising overhead. At the city level, we will prepare support measures to keep your losses to a minimum."
At that, several repair shop owners nodded along. They weren't wholly convinced, but they seemed to understand at least that this wasn't a project being rammed through at any cost.
Yoon Yi-hyun advanced to her final slide. On it, the new Yeojin Stream—joined to the Car-Free Street—unspooled across the rendering.
"This project is not simply a stream restoration. It changes the flow of the city and draws people together naturally. When the stream comes back to life, the landscape transforms, people come to visit, and commerce thrives. The protagonists of that change are all of you."
With those words she closed the presentation and quietly stepped back.
Next, just as planned, Park Yeon-ho, head of the Eco-Environment Division, took the microphone and stepped forward. He gave a brief nod and began in a quiet voice.
"Everyone, the stream restoration project we're discussing today is not simply about improving the scenery. One of its most important purposes is preventing the flood damage that repeats every single year."
At his gesture the screen changed, and photographs of flood damage from years past appeared one after another. Water swallowing the road. Muddy water surging up to the storefronts. Merchants wading knee-deep through the flood, hauling equipment as they worked to recover. Some of the shops in those photos belonged to residents sitting in this very room, and every eye locked onto the screen. Some nodded; others let out small sighs.
Park Yeon-ho continued slowly.
"The Yeojin Stream was once far wider than it is today. But in the course of urbanization, roads were laid and parking lots secured, and the stream was narrowed. In that process, it wasn't just the channel that shrank—the stream's very function changed. Drainage pipes were run through it and it was pressed into service for sewage, so now even a moderately heavy rain overwhelms it, year after year."
He aimed his laser pointer at a photo on the screen.
"Look at this region's annual rainfall, and you'll see the frequency of summer downpours steadily climbing. Under the influence of climate change, both the intensity and the volume of rain are trending irregularly upward. In other words, with the stream in its current state, we should expect even more severe flood damage ahead."
Some of the residents began to murmur. Small voices whispered here and there.
"That's right, it wrecked business last year too."
"Every time it rains, I'm a nervous wreck."
Comments like these drifted through the room.
"The merchants in this area are suffering the worst of it. When water floods into your shop, recovery alone takes days, and often you can't open for business the whole time. And this isn't a problem of one or two bad years—it repeats every year."
He advanced the slide again. This time it showed the stream as it would look after the restoration.
"What happens if we return the stream to its original state? The widened channel naturally secures room to receive rainwater, and once natural wetland structures are introduced to purify the water, the stream can regulate its own flow. In other words, floods can be prevented in a far safer way than the artificial drainage system we rely on now."
He turned back to the residents.
"Everyone, we spend a great deal of the budget every year recovering from flood damage. And yet the damage never shrinks. If we don't change course now, the same thing will keep repeating, year after year. The time has come for us to choose a fundamental solution."
His voice didn't waver, and the residents had no way to refute him. This was no mere forecast—it was a reality they had lived through with their own hands, every single year. A few people murmured.
"Every time it rains, the street in front of the shop turns into a river. We're sick of it."
"Right, last year the power went out and we couldn't open for days."
"The construction might be inconvenient for a while, but leaving things as they are is the bigger problem."
You could feel their attitudes shifting, little by little.
Park Yeon-ho added one last remark.
"This project is not a matter of cosmetics. It is a choice that makes our city safer, reduces the losses our merchants suffer, and prepares us for the future. I ask you to keep that in mind."
He quietly set down the microphone and returned to his seat.
Questions soon began to surface one by one. From here on, the discussion would turn in earnest to concrete implementation and design.
It had been decided in advance that I would personally run the Q&A. Everyone wore expressions thick with concern—when the mayor, me, announced he would take it on himself, no one could quite bring themselves to object.
I lifted the microphone slowly and swept my gaze across the residents once more. The very first question raised was about the walking paths.
"Why isn't there a bridge in the middle of the stream, with walking paths on both banks? And why are the paths designed to hug the hillside instead of running along the water's edge?"
The walking path question was one I had expected. It was only natural for people to want to stroll beside the stream and enjoy nature up close. But the design I had chosen wasn't simply about pedestrian convenience.
I advanced the slide to bring up a cross-section of the stream, then began my explanation at an unhurried pace.
"Everyone, you must remember that the purpose of this project is not simply to build 'a park for people.' This is an ecological stream restoration. Which means we have to make it possible for nature to recover on its own."
I pointed at the screen, to a diagram showing the difference between the water's edge and the slope above it.
"Once the stream is restored, all kinds of creatures will naturally come to live here—otters, waterfowl, a whole variety of fish. But what happens if we run the walking path right along the water's edge?"
I paused there, watching their reactions. A few tilted their heads, lost in thought.
"The people out for a stroll would love it. But for wild animals like otters, it would be devastating. As human traffic swells, the animals lose the space they need to live and eventually leave for good. Then the ecosystem collapses, and instead of the 'stream that coexists with nature' we're hoping for, we're left with nothing but an artificial channel."
I brought up several more photographs—examples of stream restoration done wrong.
"Look at some of the restoration projects carried out in other regions. They may look clean and impressive at first, but give them time and the pests multiply and the water pollution starts all over again. The reason comes down to one thing: the ecosystem was never sustained. In an environment with no natural predators, pests explode in number, and in the end people suffer for it too."
I pointed back at the design schematic.
"That's why we placed the walking path along the hillside rather than at the water's edge. People can still walk the stream and enjoy nature up close, while the wildlife is given enough room to hold its own territory. This is why we chose restoration rather than simple development."
I added one final thought.
"What you want isn't just a handsome park, is it? It's a stream that is truly alive and breathing."
At those words, small sighs of understanding rose around the room along with nodding heads. Even the residents who hadn't grasped it at first were gradually coming around to the reasoning behind the design.
And so the walking path question was settled with a single conclusion.
No sooner had one question ended than the next opinion arrived.
"But Mr. Mayor, looking at the drawings, there seems to be an awful lot of grass. Come summer, the weeds will grow thick and the bugs will multiply—shouldn't we be thorough about weed control?"
A question that was bound to come up. Most people picture a neatly manicured, park-style stream. But a natural stream, more often than not, needs its grass kept on purpose.
I raised the microphone and answered calmly.
"If we cut the grass, will the bugs disappear?"
At the question, the residents faltered for a beat.
"No. If we mow the grass down, where do you suppose the insects living there will go?"
I advanced the slide and put up a simple graphic showing where those insects typically end up.
"With nowhere left to go, they move into the nearby residential areas. In other words, if we strip out the grass in the name of keeping the stream tidy, the people living closest will actually suffer more bug problems than before."
"Ah...!"
Hearing this, several residents let out sounds of dawning realization.
"Grass isn't just weeds—it's part of the ecosystem. Only where there is grass can birds live, and small predatory insects hunt down the pests, striking a natural balance. In the course of that, the pests we love to hate, mosquitoes included, thin out on their own. That is the food chain at work."
I advanced the slide again. This time it showed the coexistence approach.
"Of course, that doesn't mean leaving every inch of it as grassland. People need comfortable space to stroll, too. So we will keep one bank in its natural state and carry out partial weed control on the other to make it easy underfoot. That way the ecosystem survives, and citizens still get to enjoy a clean, tidy landscape."
At this, several merchants and residents nodded. The mood suggested they were at least partly persuaded.
Then another question came.
"In that case, what about planting flowers instead? All that grass is hard on the eyes—if we planted plenty of flowers, it would be lovely to look at, and I imagine it would draw tourists, too."
I offered my answer carefully.
"A good suggestion—but planting flowers requires fertilizer."
I advanced the slide and brought up data on the fertilizers used in flower beds and the pollutants that wash into the stream as a result.
"When fertilizer is applied, its components eventually flow into the stream with the rain. The water quality suffers, and the risk of algal blooms climbs. That runs completely counter to the whole point of building an ecological stream."
A brief silence fell. For a moment, people seemed to be confronting a problem they had never once considered.
"That said, there's no reason the stream must be entirely without flowers. We plan to plant native species that grow without fertilizer—wildflowers indigenous to this region. That way the landscape turns beautiful on its own terms, and the ecosystem takes no harm at all."
I looked around at the people once more. Most of them were nodding. Little by little, the residents were beginning to embrace the idea of restoration rather than development.
That day, a special guest sat in quietly on the final meeting: Mr. Yoon Ki-chul, chairman of the Yeojin City Urban Planning Advisory Committee, and a man bound to me by many years of history. It was no official invitation—he had come in person at the request of the citizen participation design task force, which wanted a mid-course review.
The meeting was in full swing, the discussion at its ripest. The representatives of the Citizen Participation Corps and the staff of the Citizen Space Design Division traded opinions freely on the final public notice and the poster drafts. Someone proposed replacing the logo with handwritten signatures, and everyone was chuckling as they studied the poster.
Mr. Yoon Ki-chul watched in silence for a long while, then, near the meeting's end, spoke up calmly.
"Watching this scene today, a thought came to me unbidden. Restoring the Yeojin Stream is not merely stream construction—it is the restoration of the city's memory. And through this document, the citizens are, for the very first time, drawing a line across that memory with their own hands."
The meeting room fell still for a moment.
He looked at the representatives of the Citizen Participation Corps and went on.
"Had this restoration been led by the administration from start to finish, it would have meant nothing. A city is not drawn by technology alone. What people dreamed of, where they long to walk, where they wish to linger... only when those hearts gather does a design truly become a design."
I nodded quietly.
He added, at last:
"The Yeojin Stream must now become a place the citizens open for themselves, not a place the administration completes. I hope everyone here will remember that the first line was drawn in this room today."
There was no applause in the meeting room, no great cheer. But a subtle resonance spread through the air—the kind that everyone accepts deep in their hearts without anyone compelling them to.