Cheonggyecheon

This guide to Cheonggyecheon traces the stream buried under an elevated highway once carrying some 168,000 cars a day, from postwar shanties on its banks to the concrete paved over it in the 1950s and the highway built atop that in the 1970s. It follows Mayor Lee Myung-bak's 2003 proposal to tear the highway down against furious business owners, and the demolition that followed. Stand at the water's edge and notice how much cooler the air feels than the street a block away.