Park Joo-min Says Chong Won-o’s ‘30-Minute Commuting City’ Plan Lacks Realism

[The Financial News] The camp of Park Joo-min, a preliminary candidate for Seoul mayor from the Democratic Party of Korea, on the 17th criticized fellow preliminary candidate Chong Won-o’s “30-minute commuting city” pledge.
In a public questionnaire released that day, Park’s camp said, “Preliminary candidate Chong announced the realization of a 30-minute commuting city through a ‘Seoul Public Shared Office’ as his first pledge,” adding, “He presents it as a pledge backed by 12 years of administrative experience as a three-term head of Seongdong District, but concerns are being raised that it lacks realism, so we request concrete answers.”
On the 15th, Chong unveiled his vision of a 30-minute city as his first policy pledge through his social networking service (SNS) account. The core idea is to install and operate public shared offices so that citizens can work without commuting to their company offices.
Park’s camp argued, “For a 30-minute commuting city to be realized, there must be a concrete simulation of what percentage of commuters will be dispersed and by how much the average commuting time can be reduced,” and continued, “Nowhere in the pledge announcement is there any basic calculation of ‘how many people, to where, and by how much’ will be relocated. Please disclose the relevant data and grounds.”
They also pointed out, “Seonggong Space in Seongdong District, which candidate Chong cites as a success case, is known to have 125 workstations,” adding, “That is 0.1% of Seoul’s economically active population of 5 million. What is the target number of seats, and what percentage of commuters do you believe can be absorbed through this?”
They went on to say, “You said you would provide incentives to companies and induce them to adopt flexible work arrangements, but you did not specify what kind of incentives you would offer, which raises questions,” and added, “We also want to know whether there has been any review of how many workers in each industry can actually work under flexible arrangements.”
In addition, noting that Seonggong Space, the Seongdong-type shared office cited by Chong as an example, only began its first pilot operation on January 19 this year, they said, “Please disclose evidence of what tangible changes have been felt in a project that has been running for less than two months.”
Park’s camp stated, “The Seoul mayor is not simply an extension of district-level administration,” and added, “Policies that change the lives of 9.5 million citizens must be backed by transparent figures and rigorous verification. We seek sound policy competition with preliminary candidate Chong.”
gowell@fnnews.com Kim Hyeong-gu Reporter