City officials of Gwangmyeong, the “featureless satellite town” of the South Korean capital, Seoul, are paying a price for their zealous courting of the Swedish flat-box furniture giant Ikea. The world’s largest Ikea store (59,000 square metres), which opened on December 18, is attracting so many customers it is creating massive traffic jams. The store has parking spaces for only 2,000 cars, but it is attracting 20,000 customers a day. Officials are threatening to require Ikea to close two Sundays a month unless the store finds a solution to the problem.
