For Koreans who have aspirations of a quiet family life with children, Sejong is a prototype of what a city free of the stresses and high costs associated with marriage and child-rearing could look like. A columnist at Korean daily newspaper Joongang Ilbo imagined in a recent piece a place where the cost of education for children was low and after-work obligations were almost non-existent, and concluded that "a version of this utopia" existed in Sejong.