By Kim Rahn
The Chinese city of Nanjing has been distinguished as one of the most livable cities in an international competition designed to acknowledge eco-friendly and sustainable communities.
Judges of the International Awards for Liveable Communities (LivCom) announced the selected cities having the most livable environment or promoting the best environmental protection projects at the awards banquet held at Lotte Hotel World in Songpa, southeastern Seoul, late Monday evening, on the final day of the five-day competition.
In the Whole City Awards category, which assesses cities in general and are divided into five groups according to the size of population, the Chinese city topped the group of cities with a head count of more than 400,000. In the same group, Korea’s Jeju City and Gangdong District in Seoul were named runner-ups.
For the group of cities with populations of 200,000-400,000, Joondalup of Australia topped the rank. As for cities with 75,000-200,000 residents, Korea’s Tongyeong in South Gyeongsang Province and San Carlos in the Philippines won gold prizes, while Korea’s Namwon in North Jeolla Province got silver.
Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm of Germany and Nieuwpoort of Belgium took gold in the population range of 20,000-75,000 and less than 20,000 population, respectively.
Seogwipo City in Jeju received the top Project Awards in the nature category for its “olle” trekking project. In the category of construction, Kaohsiung of Taiwan won and Dubai of the United Arab Emirates got the award in social economy.
“During the presentations, I’ve seen people’s efforts to solve environmental problems with innovative policies. One city’s success will let others learn the policy and eventually lead to happiness on the entire globe,” Songpa Mayor Park Choon-hee said.
Delegations also adopted the “Songpa Declaration” through which they pledged to try to make cities where nature and human beings coexist.
Next year’s competition will be held in Al Ain, the United Arab Emirates.