Cheonan City has officially established a "citizen-participatory verification model" where residents directly test smart city services and propose structural improvements. This initiative marks a shift from top-down administrative transitions to a bottom-up approach, ensuring that high-tech urban solutions meet the actual needs of the populace.

Launch of the ‘Smart City Citizen Living Lab’
On March 27, Cheonan City held the appointment ceremony for the "Cheonan Smart City Citizen Living Lab" at the Chungnam Creative Economy & Innovation Center. Organized in collaboration with the Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation of Dankook University (Cheonan Campus), the event signaled the start of a seven-month journey for 60 newly appointed citizen researchers.

The Living Lab is a specialized verification system designed to refine the city's "Hub-type Smart City Construction Project." Before services are officially deployed across the city, these researchers will conduct empirical tests using virtual scenarios to identify potential flaws in the user experience.

Cutting-Edge Methodology: Generative AI and ‘Vibe Coding’
A distinctive feature of this project is the integration of advanced technology into the civic participation process. Teams composed of university students and local residents will utilize Generative AI and "Vibe Coding"—a revolutionary development method where AI automatically generates entire code sequences based on natural language descriptions—to create digital prototypes of mobile apps and web services.

By building these "digital twins" of intended services, participants can pinpoint specific inconveniences and technical hurdles that might occur in real-world applications. These findings will then be "reverse-proposed" as refined solutions to the city government and participating technology firms.

Data-Driven Policy and Risk Mitigation
Through this seven-month intensive project, Cheonan City expects to secure at least 30 distinct solutions and over 1,000 units of empirical data. This data will serve as a critical foundation for:

Minimizing the failure rate of smart city services before large-scale investment.
Establishing a systematic, data-driven evidence base for future urban policies.
Optimizing the budget by filtering out impractical technological applications early.

Building an Inclusive Smart Ecosystem
"A truly smart city is only completed when cutting-edge technology is combined with the vivid, practical ideas of its citizens," said Kim Ju-deok, Head of the Smart City Promotion Department. He added, "Through this Living Lab, we intend to build an ecosystem where every citizen can tangibly enjoy the benefits of technological advancement without being left behind."

The city plans to incorporate the feedback and prototypes developed by the Living Lab into the final stages of the Hub-type Smart City project, ensuring that Cheonan remains at the forefront of human-centric urban innovation in South Korea.

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