Why We Build the Incinerator in the Heart of the City

The air in the conference room was unnaturally quiet. The site assessment report sat on the slide, and the eyes of every official in the room were fixed on the monitor.

On screen, beneath the heading Waste-to-Energy Complex — Final Candidate Site, a single map of the entire city was displayed.

And in one corner of that map, at the very edge of the old town, a small red rectangle was marked with unmistakable clarity.

While everyone stared at the screen in silence, one of the team managers ventured a careful question.

"Um... excuse me... is that really the spot that's marked?"

He was the one who'd asked, but the question belonged to everyone in that room.

Because it wasn't what they'd expected. Most had assumed the outskirts — a vacant lot nearby, or greenbelt land with weak logistics infrastructure. A place that was administratively easy to develop, politically cheap, and empty of residents.

Instead, the announced location sat just inside the boundary of a living district, without even the usual buffer of green space.

Section Chief Cho Yeon-woo tilted his head slightly.

"It's quite close to downtown. Not even the outskirts... that's right on the edge of a residential zone."

One of the staff from the Citizen Space Design Division whispered quietly to the person beside him.

"Seriously, there? I always thought it was just empty land."

The reactions were closer to confusion than disagreement. The map on screen was clear, and the slide's title read unmistakably: Confirmed Site Candidate Proposal.

The silence that had settled over the room soon turned into open questioning. Someone raised a hand.

"Mayor, this location borders a residential area directly, so the potential for civil complaints is high. If it's not on the outskirts, people will have an emotional resistance to it as well."

Without taking my eyes off the screen, I answered slowly.

"Yes, that's right. Which is exactly why it goes here."

The room went quiet again.

"A city doesn't put what it needs on the outside. It puts what it needs on the inside. Electricity, heat, water — all of it has to flow through the daily lives of citizens. That's what basic infrastructure means."

I advanced to the next slide. The screen filled with the baseline analysis of the site, data on the adjacent residential districts, road connectivity diagrams, and projected noise impact figures.

"Putting it on the outskirts may be more comfortable emotionally. But then the question of who actually uses that energy, and where the benefits go, changes entirely. We're not building this as a facility. We're building it as a foundation."

The head of the Resource Circulation Division scribbled something in his notebook and spoke cautiously.

"I understand your reasoning, Mayor... but will citizens actually accept this? You made the case, and we agreed, which is why we've organized it this way — but I confess the worry comes first."

"That's why we build it together. We'll design it with public facilities powered by the waste heat right alongside, revenue returned to the residential districts, and part of the decision-making authority delegated to the residents themselves."

The expressions around the conference room began to shift, little by little. At first they'd been wary and perplexed; now faces were carefully rereading the slides.

"And one more thing," I added. "What we're building here isn't an incinerator. It's our attitude toward the realities a city must shoulder."

With that, I set down the mouse. The slides continued advancing on their own. It was the moment the meaning of the site began to spread — from a place on a map into a statement about what the city stood for.

For a while, stillness hung over the room again. The officials' faces, as if turning the earlier presentation over in their minds, were busy with complicated calculations and rapid inference. Some zoomed in on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the numerical data on the slides and read it again; one official leaned over and whispered something quietly to the colleague beside him.

The presentation was over, but in truth, this was where the real meeting began.

Section Chief Cho Yeon-woo spoke first.

"Mayor, the way I see it, this decision is less a matter of administrative procedure than of the city's symbolism. And frankly... it's caught even the civil servants off guard. Most of us expected the outskirts."

I nodded slowly.

"That's only natural. That's how it's usually done — send it somewhere no one lives, bury the burden, scatter the benefits so no one sees them. It's the familiar way."

"Well... that way you avoid the complaints, after all. You get administrative achievements without any conflict."

"Exactly. And that's why cities keep putting things off. They grow accustomed to safe management ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over responsible decisions. But keep that up, and eventually the center empties out, the outskirts are abandoned, and the whole city goes numb."

I moved the mouse and opened the next slide. On screen, under the title Urban Infrastructure Placement Concept, the heat-supply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠range of existing public facilities and the waste-heat utilization network branching out from the new Waste-to-Energy Complex were drawn connecting across the city's interior like a spiderweb.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"We'll use this facility as our energy production foundation. Electricity, waste heat, the heating and cooling it enables, hot water supply, reduced operating costs for public facilities. Every benefit citizens can feel will circulate inside the city itself."

Someone asked a question.

"So we're departing from the existing distributed-processing model?"

"We are. In exchange, we get a structure we control directly. This infrastructure only stays alive — only has meaning — if it's connected to the city center. Infrastructure that generates electricity has to be tied to a city's aspirations. That's why the energy citizens use must be produced beside the citizens who use it."

Someone on one side of the room drew a quiet breath. The officials seemed to be slowly realizing that the lines linking the city on that blueprint weren't merely a technical design — they were an expression of a philosophy about cities.

I added one final remark.

"This will be an unfamiliar decision, for the citizens and for all of you. But you already know our city can't be changed by familiar methods anymore. This isn't a question of infrastructure. It's a question of direction."

With that, I put the mouse down. No further questions came.

Everyone simply gazed at the city on the monitor in silence. It was unfamiliar — but a future was taking shape inside it.

The slide advanced to the next one.

Aerial views slowly zoomed in on the screen, and above them floated the name Waste-to-Energy Complex (provisional). The words themselves were technical and foreign, but nothing about the layout filling the blueprint was rigid.

The complex was divided into three buildings. On the far left stood the incinerator itself; in the middle, an integrated facility connected to the waste-heat recovery system; and at the end, a public government building and residents' convenience facilities stood side by side.

The head of the Resource Circulation Division rose from his seat, lifted a laser pointer, and indicated one side of the screen.

"This is the incinerator main building. External exposure is minimized, and the upper structure is soundproofed. The waste-heat recovery unit connects here. The building right next to it is a multipurpose community center — swimming pool, bathhouse, gym, indoor playground, and a small library."

Several officials lifted their heads. Even the ones who hadn't been following the presentation began fixing their eyes on the slides.

The screen then switched to a diagram showing the revenue-sharing structure. Above the revenue table, a line was written in bold type:

The head of the Resource Circulation Division continued.

"The annual net income benchmark includes waste-processing fees, waste-heat energy sales, and public subsidies — currently about 34 billion won in our simulations. Roughly 30 percent of that is designated as community reinvestment, and every year a citizens' committee decides how it's spent. Priority goes to youth career education, neighborhood renovation projects, and resident-led self-governance initiatives."

From the back row, an official from the Citizen Space Design Division murmured quietly.

"This is... not just an incinerator, is it."

Someone turned to look at him. The words were soft, but they carried far.

The whole room seemed to settle at that single remark, as if it had found its center again.

I watched them without a word. There was no need to emphasize anything. I felt it had all gotten through.

A short while later, one of the citizen representatives at the meeting quietly raised his hand. He was a middle-aged man who, until then, had said nothing and only taken notes.

"Mayor. This plan... I've seen something like it before, somewhere. And it always fizzled out right before adoption. Told it wasn't realistic, budget excuses, citizen opposition. And yet... I can hardly believe there's actually someone trying to do it now."

I listened quietly to him, then smiled briefly.

"Which is why I'm actually going to do it."

There was no elaborate explanation in those words, no persuasion. If anything, that one sentence seemed to dissolve the tension in the room.

"It's a plan with real potential."

The staff went back to flipping through their materials, a few exchanging opinions in low voices.

And with that, the meeting drew to a close. The presentation, the explanations — there was nothing more to add. But everyone could feel it in their bones: something was changing.

That evening, I quietly drove out and stopped in front of the site. I'd been there several times before, but never had the space come into focus so vividly as it did today.

A low, flat stretch of land, an old fence, a worn alleyway running behind it. The thought that this place no one had ever paid attention to might soon become the heart of the city struck me as strangely unreal — and yet perfectly clear.

I rolled down the window and spoke slowly.

"The things we call NIMBY facilities — the reason we can't build them isn't that the technology doesn't exist. It's that without the will to use them to find new change, to drive innovation, we never will."

Darkness was falling slowly. But before my eyes, a piece of the city was being born again.

A few days later, at a press briefing, I made it official.

"Yeojin City will design its incinerator together with its citizens. We are forming a Citizen Participation Corps. We will institutionalize citizen input on the site, the design, and the overall composition of the facilities."

The moment I finished, reporters' hands shot up all at once. Most of the questions sounded the same.

"Citizens will participate directly in the design?"

"How will you compensate for the lack of expertise?"

"Is the timeline realistic?"

I answered calmly.

"Yes, they'll participate. Of course, expert advice and support will go along with it. But the users of the living environment — the people it belongs to — are ultimately the citizens themselves. What we value most here isn't 'consent.' It's 'participation.'"

The answer was, to some degree, prepared — and the reaction was what I'd anticipated. But the mood in the room gradually moved past mere puzzlement and began drifting toward something like persuasion.

After the briefing, some of the headlines ran like this:

And that evening, the recruitment notice for the Citizen Participation Corps went up on the city's website.

Four hundred people applied within a single day.

The applicants spanned every age group — from young adults to retired civil servants. There were parents with children, and even an owner of a shop in the neighborhood put his name down.

A few days later, the first orientation was held in the large conference room at City Hall.

Section Chief Cho Yeon-woo ran the session. He looked at me with an expression that gave nothing away, and then finally cracked a small smile.

"Once again... you're going the 'designed by the citizens' route."

I nodded, smiling back.

"Counting on you again this time."

Seventy or so prospective members of the Citizen Participation Corps had gathered in the conference room. Name cards sat on each chair, and in front of every seat was an envelope with the activity schedule, a binder of materials, a pen, and a notebook.

Brief self-introductions followed. The atmosphere seemed half nervousness, half anticipation.

"I'm Lee Eun-jeong, from Samsong-dong. I have two kids, so this issue really hit home. I was against it at first, but when I heard I could take part like this, I applied."

"I'm Kim Byeong-sik — I run a butcher shop in the Seonam district. Honestly, I still have my doubts. But the Mayor put it out there like that, so... I came to watch and see."

At that moment, a citizen seated in the very back row murmured quietly.

"This Mayor seems to stake his life on citizen participation."

It was a quiet remark, but laughter rippled up from the front rows. Then another citizen chimed in.

"Same with the Yeojin Stream — whatever he does, it's all about hearing what the citizens think. And he actually listens and follows through, so hey, that's a welcome thing, isn't it?"

And that was when it happened.