Today's Korea JoongAng Daily exposed a rather grim situation* for Korea's ex-next-capital city : major investors and developpers as well as land owners prefer to cancel their arrival and pay the fine than to move in Sejong City. And many civil servants will leave their families home after the transfer of their administrations from Seoul.
To add insult to the injury, Samsung eventually opted for Saemangeum, a rival presidential pharaonic utopia**, for its future battery plant.
Big companies have decided to cut their losses, but smaller fish won't have a plan B. So after the political and economic failure, a social crisis seems the logical next step.
Food for thought for speculators : if you gamble on non bullet proof concepts, do it at your own risks. And if the concept itself is a Plan B, consider the Plan B's Plan B, or reconsider the value of the original Plan A.
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* see "Korea Inc abandons Sejong" (Korea JoongAng Daily 20110520), and on Seoul Village, previous posts about Sejong City : "About handovers and hangovers", "Pyeongchang 2018 vs Sejong City 2010 ?", "Sejong City and the beauty of lameduckhood", "Sejong City"...
** see "Ari, Arirang, Ari, Ariul City"
Sejong City has become a mess no matter how you look at it. A good idea but badly designed. President Lee made it worse by promising to support the city before election and then changing his mind afterward. The effort to change the plan was a complete disaster, and the President only has himself to blame for botching it so badly. One can only hope it's close enough to the new Science Belt to at least benefit from that.
ReplyDeleteA new town cannot succeed without a strong and consistent concept. You can't make a Brazilia out of an half empty glass like Sejong City. And even 'half full' sounds optimistic.
ReplyDeleteMerging or converging with another project could be helpful indeed.