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Song-jin-Chin is the mayor of Songnam City,

a community of more than 900,000 people just southeast of Seoul, South Korea.

It's sometimes referred to as the Korean Silicon Valley.

As you might expect then, Sungnam City is full of young ambitious people

working long hours in artificial intelligence, biotech, big data, and other tech industries.

That may be great for their careers, their companies,

and for the local economy,

but it's not so great for people's social lives.

It's not so great for meeting a partner, getting married, and

starting a family. And that means it's not so great for Korea's marriage and

birth rates which have plunged in recent years.

Yeah, the declining birth rate is so serious that the Korean government and lawmakers have been enacting various

policies since 20 years ago but it hasn't had much effect. That's sung

mayor song jin chin we were using English translations of his comments.

In the past, the mayor says,

it was a given that young South Koreans would marry

and make babies.

...