A Walking City Never Stops

The heart of the old downtown began to change, little by little.

With illegal parking clearing out of the traffic lanes, people started walking freely on the sidewalks. Mothers pushing strollers, caregivers wheeling the elderly, seniors strolling down the street at their own pace.

No one had to step down into the roadway anymore just to dodge a car.

While the illegal parking problem was being sorted out, work to restructure the old downtown's road layout was pushed forward in parallel.

Seo Jang-min, head of the Walkable City Division, came to my office once again.

"Mayor, the sidewalk expansion plan is proceeding smoothly."

"Good to hear."

I nodded and asked, "How far along is the review of the lane reduction sections?"

Seo Jang-min spread out the materials he had prepared.

"The Central Market Northern Road is currently a four-lane road, two lanes in each direction. We've decided to eliminate one lane and widen the sidewalk to 2.4 meters."

"Good. And next?"

"The Culture Street Eastern Section is too narrow for lane reduction alone to work. So we reviewed converting it to one-way traffic instead."

I nodded. "And your conclusion?"

"One-way conversion is feasible. It shouldn't disrupt existing traffic flow much — if anything, we expect congestion near the intersections to ease."

"Good."

I made the call on the spot. "Then convert it to one-way."

"Yes, Mayor."

The lane reductions and one-way conversion didn't wrap up easily. The Walkable City Division immediately convened a council with eco-traffic experts.

"Mayor, expanding one-way traffic may draw pushback from some merchants," Seo Jang-min said. "Complaints keep coming in — if cars can't get through, they say, no customers come."

I smiled and answered, "When the street fills with people, customers actually increase. But it will take time to convince them of that. Time is something I'll buy for you."

Then I spoke firmly. "What we need right now is to show that a 'street without cars' can become a 'street where people gather.' We're seeing it happen on the Car-Free Street as we speak. I'll make that case to the citizens myself, but Division Head Seo, I need you to keep persuading them too."

"Understood."

Seo Jang-min's face was set with resolve.

The actual work proceeded at a breathless pace. Banners announcing construction went up on both sides of the pilot section.

We concentrated the construction at night, to minimize disruption to citizens during the day.

Late that night, I visited the site myself. Officials and contractor crews were busily moving back and forth across the darkened road.

"Lane marking removal complete!"

"Curb stones ready for installation!"

Short commands and responses crisscrossed the night air. I watched quietly.

"Take away a single lane, and the whole road looks this different," I murmured to myself. Thanks to the narrowed lanes, the sidewalk had grown nearly twice as wide.

Street trees were slated for planting in that new space as well.

A city where the flow of people, not the flow of vehicles, set the rhythm. This was exactly what I had dreamed of.

A few days later, the one-way pilot section officially went into effect. The Culture Street Eastern Section, once two lanes wide, was reduced to a single one-way lane, and the leftover space became sidewalk.

Small flower beds and benches appeared in front of the shops. For the first time, there was space for pedestrians to actually linger.

The first day brought confusion.

"Wasn't this a two-way street before?"

"The traffic direction changed!"

Citizens and merchants alike were flustered, and complaints erupted.

"What is the mayor doing, trying to ruin our business?"

"Look at the traffic jam. What is this mess?"

I had expected exactly this reaction, so I wasn't rattled.

"The confusion will be temporary," I said at the City Hall briefing. "It takes time for streets to change and for people to adjust. But what we want isn't simply fewer cars. We want streets where people walk, linger, and live."

I explained it plainly and calmly. Fortunately, results began to show before long.

Just as the old downtown's streets started to change, one problem surfaced faster than I'd anticipated: a shortage of parking.

As the elderly kept reporting illegal parking through the Safe Reporting app, curbside illegal parking dropped noticeably. The sidewalks grew visibly cleaner, and citizens said it had become "easier to walk." But an unforeseen wave of complaints came with it.

"There's nowhere to leave a car!"

"Where am I supposed to park?"

"I run a shop — where are my customers supposed to park?"

As enforcement tightened, protests over the lack of parking space poured in. The old downtown merchants' association pushed back especially hard.

"Mayor, at this rate we'll start hearing that sales are collapsing," Seo Jang-min of the Walkable City Division said carefully.

I nodded. "An expected reaction."

I already knew this much: reducing cars and widening sidewalks was necessary, but forcing it through without alternatives would only inflame resistance.

Unless the parking problem was solved, a people-centered street could never truly take root.

I summoned Cho Yeon-woo, head of the Citizen Space Design Division, and Seo Jang-min.

"Let's reorganize the on-street parking."

"On-street parking, sir?"

Both men echoed the question at once.

"Yes. If we want illegal parking to disappear, we have to create legal places to park. Give people official parking spaces — then enforce firmly against everything else."

I spread out the drawings as I explained. "Secure at least two meters of sidewalk width, and designate part of the space freed up by the lane reductions as on-street parking — limited specifically to areas around shopping districts."

"Will the sidewalk allocation still hold up?" Seo Jang-min asked.

"There's plenty of room to adjust. Just never let the sidewalk drop below two meters."

"Yes, Mayor."

"But we can't let it sit unmanaged like before," I said, lowering my voice. "On-street parking must be run systematically."

"Who would manage it?" Cho Yeon-woo asked.

"We hand it to the residents' self-governance councils."

I said it firmly. "The councils are the organizations most rooted in their neighborhoods. If residents manage it themselves, order gets established by the community — not by enforcing bureaucrats."

"And the revenue?"

"Revenue generated under council management gets reinvested in local public projects — alley maintenance, environmental improvements, that sort of thing. Give the councils direct control of the funds and they'll throw both hands up in delight."

I spoke with conviction. "That said, the lots must operate in good order. If they descend into chaos, we pull out immediately."

Seo Jang-min and Cho Yeon-woo nodded at the same time.

"Understood, Mayor. We'll start preparations right away."

A few days later, the Walkable City Division and the Citizen Space Design Division began surveying candidate sites for on-street parking across the old downtown — focusing on areas near the main commercial districts, along the central roads, and on stretches where illegal parking was heaviest.

Then they compiled the results and reported back to me.

"Mayor, we can create roughly a hundred spaces across eight sections."

"Good."

I gave the approval and repeated my warning. "Build the on-street parking, but never encroach on pedestrian space. And avoid placing spots in front of storefronts where possible — confine them to leftover roadway space."

"Yes, Mayor."

All that remained was the consultation with the residents' self-governance councils.

I issued instructions to the Citizen Communications Team. "Arrange a meeting with the council representatives. Explain the structure thoroughly — that parking revenue will be returned to the neighborhood — and get their consent."

Yeojin City had only recently converted its residents' committees into residents' self-governance councils. On the surface it looked like nothing more than a new name, but in reality it was an entirely different system.

The conversion expanded what the councils could do on their own — yet one decisive problem remained: the budget. They had an organization, and no shortage of things they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wanted to do, but no way to actually raise funds.

City Hall couldn't simply fund them either. Budget lines were already fixed, and the institutional foundation for delegating budget authority to the councils was still thin.

The result was a half-baked autonomy — people with responsibilities but no money.

So the proposal to hand over the operation of on-street parking was, for the councils, an unexpected opportunity. For the first time, they could generate revenue on their own — and with that revenue, pursue genuinely resident-led community projects.

When I laid out the plan, the staff member who had been buried under the councils' complaints answered without hesitation.

"Yes, we'll move on this immediately."

The old downtown's streets were now ready to be restructured into a balanced form — "roads for people" and "just enough space ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for necessary vehicles" coexisting side by side.

With the on-street parking question at least given a direction, I quietly caught my breath. What came next was making the change something citizens could actually feel on the ground.

Results have to show up on the street, not in the paperwork.

A few days later, the pilot construction was finished.

It hadn't been a massive project. We simply narrowed the existing lanes and widened the sidewalks.

We tore out the fences and added crosswalks people could cross naturally.

Structures once taken for granted — the old car-centered fixtures — were boldly removed, and the space was re-arranged around the flow of people.

At first, citizens found the remade Central Market Northern Road and Culture Street Eastern Section unfamiliar.

"Was it always this wide here?"

"There are fewer lanes?"

"Something's different, but I can't say what."

The strangeness didn't last long.

More and more people started walking. The old scene of pedestrians squeezing past each other on the narrow sidewalk vanished, replaced by a street roomy enough for two or three to stroll side by side.

Young mothers pushing strollers said it had gotten far easier; elderly people in wheelchairs could now go out onto the street without a second thought.

The response from seniors was especially warm.

"The light used to change so fast I'd have to run halfway across. Now the cars stop on their own, so I feel much safer."

"I never get startled crossing the street anymore."

Stories like these drifted through the market district everywhere you went.

Cars slowing down at unsignalized crosswalks and yielding to pedestrians first looked awkward at the start — then quickly became an unremarkable part of daily life. Accidents caused by blindly trusting the traffic signals, like the ones before, declined as well.

Drivers, too, proceeded carefully through the signal-free stretches, mindful that a person might step out at any moment. The old flow of vehicles racing down the road softened, and traffic noise dropped noticeably.

The city's very air grew gentler.

The sounds you heard while walking were different now. Instead of engines, you heard people's laughter, children running and playing, neighbors chatting along the roadside.

The city's rhythm is changing, I thought quietly.

The merchants began to feel the change too.

"Before, customers would just blow right past in their cars. Now they walk up and browse."

"Ever since they built the terrace street and widened the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sidewalks, we get plenty of people who buy a coffee and sit out on the street."

"Families with strollers keep coming. They stop in the shop, too."

Reports came up from the market merchants' association that the change was something they could feel in their bones. Sales hadn't surged dramatically — but the simple fact that "people were coming" was enough to fill the merchants with anticipation.

"A city lives when its people walk."

That simple principle was now something the mayor, the merchants, and the citizens all felt for themselves.

One day, Cho Yeon-woo of the Citizen Space Design Division stopped by my office and spoke carefully.

"Mayor, shall we prepare the next phase?"

"The next phase?"

"Yes. Beyond the pilot sections, I believe other streets could support sidewalk expansion and lane adjustments. Of course, there are stretches where complaints are still to be expected."

I smiled and answered, "I think it's too early. First, let the citizens fully feel the change they have now."

"Understood, Mayor."

Expanding too fast only breeds resistance. First let people experience this change in their own bodies, and over time plant ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the sense of a "walking city" naturally in their hearts.

Do that, and sooner or later the demands will come — our neighborhood next, please. And we handle it then.

We had started, after all. And in the end, what changes a city isn't policy — it's people's memory.

I looked out the window.

People sitting along the street, drinking coffee. Families laughing as they pushed strollers. Seniors meandering unhurried through the market district.

The street was beginning to change. Slowly — but unmistakably.