SEONGNAM — Seongnam Mayor Shin Sang-jin, currently on a trip to Europe, toured major urban renewal sites in Italy and worked out details of his vision for the city's future spatial strategy.
Shin visited Bergamo, Milan and Bologna in succession to examine cases of privately led development, the linking of old and new downtown districts, and the conversion of industrial heritage into hubs for advanced industry, the Seongnam city government said on the 16th. The trip reflects the city's intent to incorporate private capital, future technologies and citizen participation into the direction of its urban renewal efforts.
Seongnam believes it is difficult to produce changes residents can actually feel through public-led renewal alone. The city therefore plans to prepare a sustainable renewal model by applying private investment capacity and an advanced industrial base to urban space.
On the 12th, local time, Shin visited Chorus Life in Bergamo, Italy. The project transformed an aging industrial site into a mixed-use smart district with a multipurpose arena, a shopping center and a hotel. Private capital played the central role in the renewal project, and the development is notable for its pedestrian-oriented plazas and green space rather than a car-centered layout.
At the site, Shin stressed practicality and speed as core values of urban renewal. Creating spaces where residents can feel real change requires not only government planning but also the execution capacity of the private sector, he said.
On the 13th, he visited the Porta Nuova project site in Milan. Porta Nuova is considered a leading example of reorganizing a city center that had been cut off by railway facilities and idle land into a mixed-use district combining offices, housing, retail, culture and parks.
"Just as Milan harmoniously connected the spaces of its past and present, Seongnam must move beyond a structure in which the old downtown and the new town exist separately and link them into a single living area," Shin said.
On the 15th, he visited Tecnopolo in Bologna. The site is a former tobacco factory redeveloped into a research cluster based on digital technologies such as supercomputing, big data and artificial intelligence. It has drawn attention as a case that goes beyond simply preserving buildings by adding future functions to industrial heritage.
Tecnopolo's practice of opening its research facilities to the public and communicating with residents through events such as a future innovation festival was also presented as something Seongnam can draw on.
"Urban renewal must not stop at constructing new buildings," Shin said. "It must add advanced industry to the assets of the past and return the results to residents." He added, "I will realize urban renewal in Seongnam that residents can feel, combining private vitality, advanced technology and citizen participation."