Progress, what progress?

Some kind soul posted a note asking where this has gone. Frankly nowhere. I don't care to spend a lot of typing time while coming off down as on Korea but there are some pretty hard barriers to cross with this type of project. The following are the three main reasons for the stall. As you can see, it's not largely direct issues with Koreans so so go calling ma a hater, far from it. It's just the way stuff goes.

1) In October of 2008 the economic downturn sent quite a few well funded and staffed foreign managers of the Songdo City project back to their home countries. This is unfortunate as their skills and management ability were valuable as was their interest and support for the project. This is the largest reason for the stall.
2) I was warned that, in Korea, projects that reap intrinsic value or community good-will often crumble when there is not fast cash to be made for someone. I saw this play out when we tried to secure land access in a big park to make trails only to be told we would be charged upwards of 10 million Won ($10,000). You want US to PAY YOU to make public trails. Right...
3) The concept of "Singletrack" or ideals like "Sustainability" are like showing a wrist watch to a hog. I showed picture after picture of singletrack, took people on walks on trails, and did PowerPoint presentations only to asked how we intend to get the concrete mixer back in the woods.

So, now Incheon continues to put waste tax money puting in wooden stairs on every mountain (Likely to thwart bicycles) and ignore the loss of soil underneath or the loss of revenues from MTB sales and tourism.