The First Crack, the Declaration of Design

When I headed for the civil affairs office, the staff all rose from their seats at once.

"Mr. Mayor, you really don't need to come all the way down here..."

I gave a light wave of my hand and walked on in silence. Near one end of the waiting benches, a handful of citizens sat holding coffee cups, and their eyes turned toward me.

They froze for a moment at the sight of the mayor himself, but someone quickly found his voice.

"Mr. Mayor, about the incinerator. Is it really coming to Yeojin City?"

"The article made it sound like it was already decided. Did anyone even ask the residents what we thought?"

I sat down at the edge of the table, accepting a paper cup of warm water, and answered.

"Nothing has been confirmed — not the site, not the method. What you read was leaked from the Gwangseong City side. We're still in the review stage."

"Then why does it have to be Yeojin of all places? Why on earth does a facility like that need to come here?"

I inclined my head slightly and continued quietly.

"I keep asking myself that same question. But one thing is certain: whatever decision is made, I will not allow it to happen in a way that leaves Yeojin City shortchanged."

A brief silence followed. My tone had been soft, but the words were firm.

One of the citizens pressed again.

"Still — in the past, whenever the city had something like this in the works, didn't they hold a residents' briefing first? Learning about it from the news before anyone tells us anything, it just makes people more anxious."

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"You're right. We were late with this. We should have started talking publicly, and sooner. I apologize."

The formal apology seemed to soften the mood a little, and I continued in a quieter voice.

"So we'll be holding a formal public forum soon. Please come and speak your mind there. And... we're not at the stage where this kind of anger is warranted yet. If this does move forward, we will hold the initiative, and we will steer it in a way that benefits us. Yeojin City is not going to let anything simply slide past it."

At that, one of the citizens, who had been exchanging glances with the others, murmured:

"Mr. Mayor, can we really take the initiative on something like this?"

I smiled briefly.

"Showing you that is my job."

The large conference room at City Hall — the same hall where budget briefings and public hearings were usually held. The plan had originally been to set out only 150 chairs, but word came that registrations had exceeded expectations, and seating was hastily added.

Microphones and a projection screen were in place, along with name tags for the officials — yet not a single person there believed this meeting would end neatly.

I sat in the center seat, but did not turn on my microphone. The Citizens' Communication Team Leader was moderating. In the front row sat the Resource Circulation Division Chief and the team in charge, side by side.

The first few minutes were quiet. The team leader briefly presented the prepared materials, walking through the background of the review, cases from other municipalities, and the technical standards involved.

But the moment the citizen Q&A began, the atmosphere heated up fast.

"Mr. Mayor, the incinerator's already a done deal, isn't it? This whole thing is just for show, right?"

A citizen who had taken the microphone strode across the conference room. A middle-aged man, his tone caught somewhere between suspicion and anger.

"The papers said Yeojin City was 'reviewing it favorably.' That's how we found out. Why do the people actually affected have to hear it later than the press does?"

Another woman threw her hand up and cut in.

"You've done a lot of fresh, interesting things since taking office. The Car-Free Street, the citizen design contest, the restructuring of urban design — those were good. But this is different. No matter how nice the facility is, an incinerator is an incinerator. It's a NIMBY facility. Why should we have to bear the stain on our city's image too?"

The hall quickly slid into agitation.

"Why does it have to be our neighborhood?!"

That shout burst out from one side of the room, and from the other, voices rose in answer.

"If you need it so badly, build it next to the officials' own houses!"

I lifted my head and swept the room with my eyes alone, quietly.

Emotions had run high, but underneath it all, fear still outweighed suspicion here. And most of that fear stemmed from a single thing — the lack of information.

The Resource Circulation Division Chief picked up the microphone.

"Let me be clear. The site has not been chosen. Gwangseong City has submitted a request for distributed waste processing, and we are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠merely reviewing internally what conditions might be workable for Yeojin City."

But one man pushed back.

"'Reviewing' it just means you've already decided to take it, doesn't it? Everyone else in Gwangseong said no, so it lands on us. Site not chosen? Isn't that a finished conversation already?"

Sweat beaded on the Division Chief's forehead. The team leader discreetly passed him a document from behind, but he still couldn't find his next words.

Then yet another citizen took the microphone.

"Mr. Mayor, I get it. You've worked hard, and you have results. But not this. However nicely you wrap it up, if you're raising a kid, it doesn't sit right. That's not emotion — that's instinct."

I listened without a word to the very end, like a recording device, storing every single remark in my head exactly as it was spoken.

One of the secretarial staff who had been watching quietly passed me a note, but I did not raise my hand.

The Division Chief forced himself to keep explaining.

"If you look at overseas examples... there are facilities built with real design and purpose, like Amager Bakke in Copenhagen, Denmark. There's a ski slope on its roof. Some incinerators in the capital region are built underground, with parks on top of them. The point is not to stay trapped in the word 'incinerator' — what matters is how it's built."

But the citizens' reactions did not bend so easily.

"Denmark? This is Yeojin City! Is that supposed to be realistic?"

The hall stirred again.

Before anyone noticed, the meeting had passed the one-hour mark. The officials' explanations no longer carried any force, and the microphone in front of me remained switched off.

I was quietly, slowly preparing a declaration that no one in the room had anticipated.

The air in the hall had grown heavy. The shouting had stopped — not because anyone had been persuaded, but because everyone was exhausted. Round after round of reproach and distrust, of protests that would not give way.

The Division Chief was already on his third handkerchief, dabbing at his brow, while the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠team leader stared blankly at the screen, unable even to turn to the next page of the file.

More and more eyes were turning toward me. Sitting in silence can pass for consideration in some settings, but in a room like this it reads as evasion.

I had said nothing and only listened. But the longer that silence stretched, the more heavily the gazes in the room pressed down on me.

I picked up the glass of water and took a sip. The water was still cold. Setting the glass down, I pressed the microphone switch with the tip of my finger.

Beep—

At that small sound, the entire hall fell silent. Truly — the moment when everyone in the room drew the same breath.

I raised my head and began with a single sentence.

There were gasps, protests, faces that said the words simply made no sense. Chairs creaked abruptly in the back, and from a citizen seated along one wall came a murmur quiet enough to be just barely audible.

"What did he just say......"

I continued.

"This is not an easy decision to make, and I know that better than anyone. The discomfort, the tangled worries — I understand all of it. The reason I'm saying this here, in front of you, is simple: because ultimately, someone has to make this decision."

At the staff section, Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon lowered her head slightly and looked at me. Her expression said, plainly, not now.

I neither avoided her gaze nor accepted it. I simply paused for a beat and spoke again.

"If we refuse, the burden flows to a weaker city. Somewhere with a smaller budget than ours, a quieter citizenry, a thinner administrative foundation. So what would we gain from that? A clean image? A quiet daily life? Is it truly right for someone else to shoulder this in our place?"

Exhales could be heard around parts of the hall. One woman sat with her hands clasped and her head bowed, while a young man in the back row switched off his phone screen and looked straight at me.

I spoke to them slowly.

"That is why I will bring this facility to Yeojin City. Not as simple acceptance. We will set the conditions, we will design it, and we will take part in operating it. And......"

I lifted my head, pulled the microphone a little closer, and spoke calmly.

"I will move in next door to it."

The stillness of the hall erupted all over again.

"I'm sorry?"

"What did you just say?"

Voices burst out from every direction at once, and the officials turned toward me in unison. Chief Kang half-rose from her seat and spoke quietly.

"Mr. Mayor, that matter has not been discussed yet. To state it here, at this moment......"

I stilled her words with a gesture, then went on.

"Then we're discussing it now. In front of the citizens of Yeojin City."

The entire hall held its breath. I took my hand off the microphone and folded both hands neatly on the table.

"I will move the mayoral residence next to the incinerator. I will live there myself, in that area, and see it with my own eyes. That is how I intend to shoulder, exactly as you do, the worry and the distance you would feel."

From the back row, a middle-aged man muttered as if to himself.

"He's actually going to move in?"

I did not answer that. Instead, I added:

"I don't see this as a mere incinerator. I see it as an opportunity to transform Yeojin City. We have survived by opposing, always and only opposing. It's time to change the way we do things — by proposing, by designing, by demanding conditions.

This incinerator will be designed as the most advanced model available — architecturally, environmentally, functionally. The ground level will be a park, the interior an exhibition hall, built so that anyone can come and walk through it. A new urban standard made in Yeojin City. It can become its symbol."

The reactions were still ambiguous.

"And I want the scale built far larger than what's currently on the table. We'll have Gwangseong City pay its waste processing fees here in Yeojin, and use that to build our fiscal capacity. Naturally, we'll link jobs in the surrounding neighborhoods to it as well."

Some ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the officials were jotting things down in their notebooks. The Division Chief kept his mouth shut, only his eyes rolling, and the citizens remained frozen in silence, unable to find their voices.

As I drew to a close, I added one final thing.

"This is a promise. Yeojin City will not be the one bearing this — Yeojin City will be the one designing it. And I will stand at the center of that."

I switched off the microphone.

In that instant, sound drained out of the hall. Not just the noise — even the murmur of voices vanished into a dead stillness.

And within that stillness, everyone could feel some new emotion beginning to move.

A thousand feelings showed in their eyes. Some seemed to be thinking, what is that lunatic of a mayor up to now? Others simply looked dumbfounded — mouths hanging wide open like a panel from a comic book, unable to form a single word.

The very people who had been shouting themselves red-faced minutes ago had turned to stone.

At that moment the moderator, the Citizens' Communication Team Leader, quickly stepped in, and the forum came to an end just like that.

After leaving the conference hall, I did not go straight to my office. I stopped for a moment at the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the corridor.

Outside it was dark. The lights of the apartment complexes across the river were half extinguished, and most of the cars had already emptied out of the City Hall parking lot.

The meeting was over, but the fight was not. The declaration still echoed in the stillness, and in the doubt, some seed had been planted. Whether it was real — people would soon respond.

I spoke to Chief of Staff Kang, who had followed me out.

"Before the first briefing tomorrow morning, check the online reaction for me first, please."

"Understood. Although... you did go a bit far today."

"I know. But if I hadn't, nothing would have changed."

"That much is true."

Chief Kang lowered her head without a word. Partway down the corridor, she passed me for a moment, then stopped.

"Mr. Mayor... you truly intend to move to the mayoral residence there?"

Hm — it wasn't the incinerator itself that hit hardest, but the promise to live beside it and prove it myself, was it?

"Yes. I'll organize it, announce it, and prepare to move. Soon."

She did not answer. Instead, she bowed her head deeply.

It was neither objection nor approval — a strange, silent acknowledgment that said only: I will trust you.

Before dawn the next day, before I'd even left for work, a message came in from Chief Kang first.

When I switched on my phone, several screenshots from the local community forum came through.

The community reaction was still a tangle of everything at once — distrust and admiration, cynicism and restraint, all mixed together.

But the core of it was a current that had shifted from before. People were no longer simply shouting absolute opposition.

I turned slowly through the screens, then stopped my hand and drew in a quiet breath. I already knew: what changes people is not persuasion, but the crack.

A crack begins not with emotion, but with the trembling of trust. And tonight, that first tremor had arrived.

A few days later, the department heads and everyone concerned had gathered in the City Hall conference room.

On the large monitor glowed the words: Basic Concept Proposal — Municipal Waste Resource Recovery Complex (provisional name). Beneath it, in bold letters, was written:

I advanced the slide without a word — not to gauge reactions, but because this was the moment when numbers mattered more than talk.

The Resource Circulation Division Chief began the explanation first.

"First, the volume Gwangseong City would entrust to us for processing is 150 tons per day. Projected annual revenue on that basis, including operational subsidies, comes to roughly 7.2 billion won."

"Of that, 30 percent is earmarked as funding returned directly to citizen infrastructure. In other words, a structure that invests approximately 2 billion won a year straight into the community."

As the slide turned, a diagram of the revenue distribution structure appeared on the next page.

Items sorted into public facility upgrades, support for the residents' self-governance council, youth career education, and green jobs were laid out in neat order.

I added my own comments.

"Don't stop at the 150 tons Gwangseong is entrusting to us — calculate the case where we process their entire required volume. The scale will grow enormously. And don't set the processing fee at the current unit price; price it at more than double. Our returns will grow accordingly."

The Division Chief hesitated before speaking.

"If we raise the cost too much, Gwangseong City could turn to private incinerators instead. Isn't going too high risky?"

I answered with a smile.

"Think it through. Gwangseong has to handle 700 tons a day, and if they only incinerate 150 of those, the rest has to be landfilled. But if we take the full volume, and we commit to designing at a scale that large, they'll have to sink a massive budget into us up front — and once it's built, landfill or private incineration becomes unthinkable for them. And of course, our revenue grows that much larger."

Keeping that same momentum, I continued.

"The neighboring cities need incinerators too, so we'll let it be known that we're willing to take on their share as well. Scaled up to a thousand tons, it may not matter right away — but later, this becomes a serious cash cow."

Several people nodded.

"And the crucial part is this. It cannot end with 'the revenue comes into the city.' We make explicit the structure by which it 'returns to the citizens.' Whether as a fund or a budget line — a mechanism where citizens participate every year to decide how it's used. This will be its first introduction, starting now."

The Planning and Budget Division Chief raised a hand cautiously.

"Mr. Mayor, then this budget would be operated separately as designated-purpose funding, not folded into the general account?"

"Correct. If necessary, we'll draft an ordinance and consider establishing a dedicated management body. The plan also includes a structure in which the residents' self-governance council becomes the contracting party for the operation."

At those words, the room fell quiet.

Several of the advisors nodded, and one staffer from the Citizen Space Design Division leaned over to whisper to the person beside her.

"This thing might actually work......"

I advanced the screen. This page showed a simulated site concept map, and beside it, the surrounding neighborhood improvement plan.

A children's library, a playground, rest areas, a community cafeteria, and a resident-operated energy center.

And beside them, in small print, was written:

Someone on one side of the room let out a small laugh. That single line, inserted without any fanfare, felt like the sentence that revealed the sincerity behind the entire plan better than anything else.

I saved my words for the end of the meeting. It was a time when saying less said more.

The moment when a situation I had been dragging along with words was being pushed forward by numbers and structure instead.

The next morning, the moment I stepped out through the front doors of the government building, a fluorescent pink banner flashed at the bottom of the steps. The large letters spelling out Yeojin Moms Emergency Response Committee caught the morning sun. Twenty-some parents formed a semicircle, holding their children's hands or pushing strollers.

I stopped mid-step. The representative at the front took a step forward and bowed her head.

"Mr. Mayor, do you have a moment?"

Her tone was polite, but both her eyes were honed sharp.

She drew a thick sheaf of papers from her coat — five hundred signatures collected through the night, dotted here and there with the handprints of small children.

"We have three demands."

She enunciated each one clearly.

"First, live broadcast of every negotiation session. Second, guaranteed participation of a safety verification panel made up of medical specialists and pediatricians. Third, standing participation for every stakeholder, including local residents."

I looked down for a long while at the small child-sized palm prints streaking across the paper. Little round smudges of ink, already drying to a glisten on the white pages.

Something in the corner of my chest stung, strangely. These were not mere opponents — they were parents who had come out to build their own shield.

"All right."

My voice came out lower and clearer than I'd expected.

"We've been open about everything so far, and we will stay that way. All three of your demands will be reflected."

The representative's eyes flew wide open for an instant, and a low murmur rippled through the parents around her.

"He's really giving us all of it?"

Someone whispered that, while another loosened her grip on the signature pages she'd been clutching to her chest.

I stepped forward and took the petition in both hands.

"You must have worried a great deal. Because this isn't a matter of administration — it's a matter of daily life. I will move with the conviction that I am answerable for the very air your children breathe."

In that instant, the representative's expression shifted from hardened tension to a cautious relief.

Still, the petition resting in my hands was surprisingly heavy. Wanting to feel that weight a little longer, I deliberately did not hand ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it off to my staff right away.

"We'll convene a meeting in the near future. Those of you here today, please take part as well."

As the short promise ended, the edge of the banner fluttered faintly in the sunlight. Some still couldn't shake the suspicion from their eyes, but others nodded and began photographing the scene on their phones.

Walking down the steps, I was mildly startled at myself.

Did I really accept that that easily?

But soon something like gladness bloomed inside me. It was an amusing kind of tension — one that had come not as opposition but as demands, not as distrust but as participation.