The Standing Planning Unit: Design as Daily Practice

I closed the folder and quietly tidied the desk before me. The mood in the conference room was guarded, but it had refined itself into something composed.

The bureau directors' faces were calm, yet every last one of them had to feel it—that this was no routine reshuffle of appointments, but a declaration that the power structure of urban planning itself was about to change.

A brief silence followed. I had left it there deliberately. That silence was the most important piece of design in the entire meeting.

Change rammed through without a pause only deepens resistance. Given the right measure of time and a few measured breaths, each person in the room quietly reaches their own verdict somewhere in the gap. You have to wait for that.

Then I spoke again.

"We're changing not only how the committee is composed, but how it operates. Until now, whenever an item came before the committee, it met, voted, and adjourned—nothing more than a one-off review. You cannot design a city that way. So we will establish a Standing Planning Unit: a body that reviews agenda items and, where necessary, carries them all the way through design. We will formally create an organization that functions as a kind of secretariat for the committee."

At my words, a few eyebrows stirred almost imperceptibly. I had produced the term Standing Planning Unit without warning, and to most of the room it must have been an unfamiliar concept.

It exists in the law, yet hardly any local government actually runs one—because for years, most cities have treated urban planning review as a mere rite of passage, processed as pure formality.

"The Standing Planning Unit will be a permanently operating body for designing the city. It won't simply vet proposals; it will become an organ that plans and coordinates the city's structure from a long-term perspective. Its meetings will not convene only when an agenda item appears. I intend to make it an organization where planning is part of the everyday."

I could see Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon writing on her memo pad—most likely distilling keywords for the press.

She probably already knew, too, that this was a matter we would have to take all the way to an ordinance amendment. The Yeojin City Urban Planning Ordinance did, after all, already contain a provision for a standing planning unit.

But granting it the substantive role I was proposing made revising that ordinance inevitable.

The Director of the Urban Space Bureau quietly raised his hand.

"Mr. Mayor, forgive me—but won't the roles of the Standing Planning Unit and the existing committee collide? Legally, the committee holds the authority to decide. If the unit operates separately, people may begin to speak of a duplicated structure."

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

I nodded.

"That's precisely why I'm dividing the roles. The Standing Planning Unit will handle advisory work and design, and the committee will review what it produces and make the final adjustments. Until now, this city has coordinated without ever designing. We keep the decision-making structure intact—but before it, we build a far more exacting design table. That is the unit's job."

I felt the air in the room shift again. There was no audible sound of defensive lines collapsing, only a quiet movement—planning documents being rewritten line by line.

Some of the directors nodded; others began jotting notes in the margins of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their briefing packets.

I went on.

"Design must follow people, not statutes. The era when experts judged everything by figures and standards is over. Figures matter, of course—but what those figures ultimately mean comes down to a single question: is this a space where people can actually live? Only when you can read that by instinct first does a design come alive."

On one side of the room, Section Chief Cho Yeon-woo gave a very quiet nod.

The others likely never noticed it, but I caught that small movement all the same, clear as day. It was a firmer signal than any words.

He, better than anyone in the room, must have felt his own carefully offered words from yesterday taking concrete shape as the organization's direction today.

I rolled my pen between my fingertips and let the pause run. It was less an exchange of arguments than a moment for confirming direction.

The directors had not opposed that direction head-on, but neither had they laid their true minds fully open. Beneath their expressionless faces, hesitation and unease clearly remained.

Those were not things I could afford to ignore.

Administration does not move on declarations alone. For institutions to change, persuasion and procedure are required—which ultimately means waiting for the organization to understand at its own pace.

"Planning and Coordination Office—please prepare a proposal for organizing the unit. Its place and role already exist in the ordinance, so we can approach this by keeping the structure and changing only the substance."

The Director of the Planning and Coordination Office nodded and wrote something down—one line, then two.

Only then did the atmosphere loosen a little. The air in the conference room began to move—faintly, but unmistakably.

"Committee appointments will be wrapped up by next month. For the review of civic organizations and the professional talent pool, have the Administrative Support Section submit a preliminary draft first. Take recommendations from public architects and figures from the welfare, culture, and education sectors with an emphasis on working practitioners—and take care that it doesn't come to center on any one faction or institution. This could become a politically sensitive signal."

"Yes, sir. We'll proceed that way."

The chief of the Administrative Support Section answered with a flustered look. A question or two flew at me through his eyes alone, but those would be sorted out with the Chief of Staff later.

For now, all that mattered was setting the bearing. Time would settle the details.

One of the directors asked carefully.

"Mr. Mayor, how should we approach the allowances and the budget for the outside experts joining the Standing Planning Unit?"

I gave a brief nod.

"Convert part of the contracted-study budget and use that. The old structure of pouring everything into one or two outsourced studies a year has to change. Design should not be a contract—it should be continuous, participatory planning."

At that, some nodded while others stole glances, gauging the reactions of the people beside them.

Even that habit of watching to see who would react first felt like a tableau laying bare how deeply a vertical order had taken root in this organization.

But even that lay within the range I had anticipated. What I meant to change was not merely the structure; it was also the way people looked.

I quietly drew a fresh sheet of memo paper across the desk and wrote:

I slid the memo across to Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon; she copied it down without a word and nodded.

"Mr. Mayor, how shall we explain this to the press?"

"Tell them we changed the institutions first so the city can be designed in the citizens' language. This is not a restructuring for administrative convenience—it is a procedure for designing the city properly."

When I said that, she nodded once more and began distilling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it into a few clean keywords.

The phrases went down in quick succession. By the time the meeting wound to a close, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠air was softer than before, but a long aftertaste still hung over the room. Everyone had set down their pens and closed their notebooks, yet not everyone had put their expressions away with them.

That is how organizations always are. The climate in which change is received matters more than the change that is announced.

I took my time wrapping up, on purpose. More important than a loud proclamation is the tempo—and a single beat of that tempo might well decide the course Yeojin City runs from here.

"That's all from me."

As I said it, Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon rose quietly and added the closing remarks. That the meeting concluded without any real objection meant it had been accepted, to a degree.

It was not that no one disagreed. But no one refused openly either—and that was a signal that this much lay within what the organization could bear on its own.

Before stepping out of the conference room, I stole a glance back. Section Chief Cho Yeon-woo had not yet left his seat.

He sat before his desk with his fingertips quietly gathered, perfectly still. He would have known that the words he had ventured so carefully yesterday were being reflected in this room today, one by one.

That rang clearer than any spoken assurance would have, and so I chose not to say anything at all.

He gave a light nod, and I returned a small nod with my eyes. It was enough.

Just as I was about to step through the door, the Director of the Urban Space Bureau approached cautiously.

"Mr. Mayor, I'll finalize the minutes with the Chief of Staff and share them with you promptly. As for the committee's composition, I will report back after our internal review."

I answered briefly.

"Director, let's use this occasion to give administration a little more room to reflect reality. If we change not whose voices we heed but what standards we judge by, the organization itself will change."

He smiled faintly, and I let the words rest there. In a room like this, an afterglow lasts longer than an argument.

When the conference room door closed, the staff rose quietly from their seats. Between the Chief of Staff's fingertips gathering up the minutes, the secretary's movements as she appended one final note, and the shuffle of papers being put in order, I heard someone's chair give a short creak.

And amid all of it, I could feel this organization beginning to turn its heading, degree by degree.

I walked the corridor back to the mayor's office. The day had been neither especially long nor especially short, but its weight was in a class of its own.

Suddenly, something my old mentor once told me surfaced from long ago.

"What matters about a city is not who plans it—it is who starts the conversation."

Back then I had let it slide past as a pleasant saying; now I could feel it in my bones.

A city does not change all at once. It changes instead as authority shifts, as perspectives shift, as the people doing the talking shift.

Back in the mayor's office, I closed the door and the quiet came rolling in again. The faint tension of the conference room, the staff watching one another for cues, the directors' careful turns of phrase—all of it receded at once, and the room fell still.

It felt less like a meeting that had ended than like one that had only just begun.

I took off my coat, draped it over the chair, and unfolded the draft minutes waiting on my desk.

The items summarized in Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon's handwriting were concise. The substance was exact; the wording, careful.

A small circle had been drawn beside each item, and on the final page, a single sentence was written:

I read the line in silence, then let out a long, slow breath.

It was true. Institutions can offer a certain measure of armor, but if actual judgment does not change, an institution is nothing more than a shell.

And judgment, in the end, moves according to who is speaking, and from what vantage point.

I took a small notebook from the drawer and opened a fresh page. This notebook was not for official minutes; it was where I wrote down my own thoughts and questions.

It held sentences no one else would ever see—yet that I had no choice but to show myself.

That day, I wrote this:

After writing it down, my shoulders felt strangely lighter. I had always assumed persuading the organization was harder work than persuading the outside world—but sometimes, convincing myself is the heavier burden of the two.

I looked past the desk and out the window; the ginkgo tree in front of City Hall was swaying faintly. Change does not arrive all at once.

But a prepared step leaves a trail for whoever walks next. And I had planted that first foot.

That afternoon, Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon handed me a single sheet of A4 paper without a word. Across the top, it read:

I read the title and lifted my head. She said nothing, but she seemed to already know exactly what expression I was wearing, and she smiled quietly.

"In the end, it's turned out just the way you wanted again."

Her voice was low and firm.

I nodded and answered.

"It has. The important groundwork is finished now. I'm looking forward to it."

At my words, Chief of Staff Kang Seol-heon tilted her head, a curious look crossing her face—no doubt she was wondering, deep in thought, just what kind of trouble I was preparing to stir up this time.

Wait a little while longer, and the answer to that question would show itself.