Local Government / Daejeon Metropolitan City To overcome the given conditions of the local economy, Daejeon Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea, is doing its best to shape the very best environment in which investing companies can conduct their business, such as security of industrial land required and nurturing cutting-edge enterprises, with the inauguration of new Mayor Park Seounghyo giving added impetus to this drive. Through popular election autonomy, Daejeon is equipped with the potential of a huge city in terms of city scale, population, and infrastructure, but still has to cope with pressing issues like the fragile local economy and the city's unbalanced development. As a a solution to these pending issues for the development of Daejeon Metropolitan City, Mayor Park proposes: "First off to improve a given condition of local economy, our City will create 10,000 jobs through a formation of the future industry complex of 1 million pyeong [around 3.3 million square meters] and utilize it as a local strategic industry complex in connection with the Daedeok R&D Special Zone." Particularly, the Mayor said that Daejeon would nurture the Daedeok R&D Special Zone as a new growth stronghold of the Republic of Korea by actively supporting it to become a super-first-rate innovation cluster. To boost support for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well, the root and the trunk of the local city economy, Daejeon Metropolitan City plans to enlarge support in conjunction with comprehensive support center establishment for SMEs as well as credit guarantees. In addition, Daejeon City plans to nurture conventions, screening, patent law and consulting industries in connection with administrative complex city construction and a tourism industry in which nature tourism, science tourism and culture tourism are harmonized. It will also bolster job creation by means of inducing corporations and investments. Second, in the interests of the City's balanced development, Daejeon City has a plan to beef up population growth and tourism promotion, such as devising theme streets and forging global connections through exhibition space plus enacting a law for balanced development between areas within Daejeon, according to Park. The new Mayor revealed his plans to expand rental housing for middle- and low-income families alongside of enacting a law to support education finance to narrow the education gap and improve the education environment, plus a plan to operate a Policy Development Team to solve education differentials between the east and the west. A model decentralization city with local autonomy Regarding the assessment of Daejeon as an exemplary model of a decentralization city of local autonomy, Park notes that Daejeon also has been growing as a hub city of science technology which is good to live in and has been enjoying the participation and cooperation of all citizens. He pointed out: "Despite concerns such as national division and regional egoism deepening in the early days of its launch, the opening of a full-scale local autonomy era has helped convert Korean society's paradigm overall from the centralization of power to the decentralization of power, bringing about big changes to our comprehensive lifestyle, not to mention politics and administration." The Mayor further assessed that the construction of the administration center complex city and the Daedeok R&D Special Zone have paved the way for a momentum to create new national growth engines with a new concept of selection and concentration. As the decentralization of power is shifted toward governmental innovation rather than itself from the second period of the Participatory Government, Park said he sees that the decentralization of power is faced with a more difficult time. Nevertheless, the Mayor assessed that the decentralization of power has progressed thanks to the current Participatory Government pursuing it as the core task of national administration with a deeper understanding of the importance of the decentralization of power than any other government. As regards a desirable direction of the decentralization of power, Park maintains: "In order for the decentralization of power to be propelled successfully, firstly autonomous financial resources expansion as well as financial imbalances between regions have to be corrected." Furthermore, he proposed that ideas such as autonomous police systems and education autonomy must be pursued as a social agenda and the provinces' autonomy must be extended through local public harmony, education and the power to issue relevant licenses, permits and approvals fitting to local conditions. Provinces play vital role in national competitiveness Mayor Park who emphasized that the 21st century is an era in which national competitiveness depends on the provinces, said: "Daejeon is eager to reinforce inhabitants' welfare and local as well as national competitiveness by concentrating local economy capability such as special efforts to induce foreign corporations as well as investment inducement, active support so that development special zone may spring into a super-first-rate innovation cluster, and the future industry complex formation to create new jobs." He committed himself to transforming Daejeon Metropolitan City into an exemplary decentralization city of power through local autonomy over science technology affairs and joint research. With regard to the redevelopment of the former downtown area, Park said that Daejeon's features will be changed anew, adding that the redevelopment agenda for the former urban center is a very important issue not only for the area's environmental upgrading, but also for the overall balanced development of Daejeon City. In particular, the Mayor underscored that in conjunction with the Daedeok Research Complex, the City is determined to develop as a cradle of global science technology by becoming a global first-rate innovation cluster within 10 years.