Basically the local politicians were suckered in by the promise of massive investments, and made some terrible decisions including forcing out some local residents to make room for development that never happened. It's definitely worth listening to the whole thing, as it's a pretty compelling story about why local communities should be very cautious and skeptical about these types of investments promises.

Incompetent politicians and a lot do wishful thinking.

I'm not sure if this is a subtly genius reference to their previous podcast called 'tldr', but if so, bravo.

My primary take on it is that the local government was overwhelmed and out of their depth and their naivete was exploited with promises of jobs and funding. At one point they declared people's homes uninhabitable to force them out. It's a pretty sad story on the local level.