The road leading to my neighborhood is a narrow one way street, due to one of these popular open sewers. However, the whole area is quite well kept, there are trees which attract birds and all that stuff.
Well, at the entrance of the street there was a big Japanese style house, that was like the center of the neighborhood (voting for the 2004 election was done there). Part of its courtyard had been closed down many years ago and separated into small stalls, where locals sold popular snacks and foods ranging from vegetarian noodles to cho to fu to steamed buns, Malasyian curries and even lunchboxes.
Saturday everything was running along as any other day. Sunday I see that the mini restaurant stalls are empty and the walls between them are being torn down. “They must be remodeling”, I say to myself. Monday I come back from work and the whole area has been flattened. Me and quite some other people who had made a beeline for the stalls now stare in utter attonishment. No more cheap snacks or lunchboxes. Worse, the beautiful Japanese style house, with decorated tiles, huge reddish’wood windows, lovely flower garden, is being taken apart. I can’t even have one last picture as the doors and screens are down already.
Now I not only have to go hungry, but I’ll have to with stand the effects of whatever 20 floor monstruosity they build there.
Sigh
As the slogan outside of Taipei 101 says, “Taipei is looking up (to avoid seeing the shit right in front of them)”.
I love the old houses here aesthetically, but every time I look inside the abandoned ones I have to remember how horrible it could be to live in one in terms of cockroaches, rats, and other assorted vermin. New apartments definitely offer a higher standard of living, but why, oh why, couldn’t some way be found to make the new places look aesthetically somewhat more like the old style of houses?
Why, oh why can’t the old ones be refurbished, renovated and made livable again? Probably it’s about the money, a 20 floor tower makes more money than an old Japanese style house … the world ®evolves around money … it’s sad
I’d usually agree with you, but I’m not entirely sure in this case - part of it must be due to the high population density of the island. If all the people here lived in old style Japanese houses, the whole island would have to be covered with them to allow for enough space, and it simply isn’t possible to do that because such a large part of the island is covered in mountains. The population keeps growing too, so the change seems inevitable to me. This definitely contributes to money, but if there weren’t so many people having the 20 floor towers wouldn’t be profitable either. Moral of the story: If you want your old style houses, start pushing birth control?
My lifelong horror of large roaches stems from having lived in an old Japanese style house during my first stay in Taiwan in the 80s. You’re right, all sorts of crawly things got in there on a regular basis. The worst was going back to the kitchen (the traditional tacked-on-the-back-of-the-house kind) and reaching around the corner to turn on the light switch…one of those giant flying roaches had chosen that moment to hang out on the switch. I was scarred for life at that moment. 
But I was still sad to see that the house was uninhabited and then gone later.
Actually a lot of those old houses get torn down when the owner discovers they may be given heritage status. Such status essentially reduces the property value to zero as the owner may not use the land in any way and if he sells it to the city he will be taking a huge loss. Not surprisingly, owners tear down the old buildings before the paperwork can be processed. No house, no heritage.
I’d usually agree with you, but I’m not entirely sure in this case - part of it must be due to the high population density of the island. If all the people here lived in old style Japanese houses, the whole island would have to be covered with them to allow for enough space, and it simply isn’t possible to do that because such a large part of the island is covered in mountains. The population keeps growing too, so the change seems inevitable to me. This definitely contributes to money, but if there weren’t so many people having the 20 floor towers wouldn’t be profitable either. Moral of the story: If you want your old style houses, start pushing birth control?[/quote]
On the contrary, the government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the second most densely populated nation on the planet needs to raise its birthrate:
CEPD plans to offer incentives to raise nation’s birthrate
STAFF WRITER WITH CNA
Monday, Jan 08, 2007, Page 3
The government plans to create incentives to encourage married couples to have more children, officials from the Council for Economic Planning and Dev-elopment (CEPD) said yesterday.
CEPD officials said they had examined policies and practices in other countries and that the state could encourage couples to have more children by providing measures to help them find a balance between work and family.
Raising the country’s birthrate hinges on factors such as flexible work schedules, subsidies for maternity leave and the affordability and availability of high quality daycare, the officials said.
Officials said that couples want to continue working while raising a family and that government measures could provide support.
As a result of a plunge in birthrate, the nation’s population is rapidly aging. By 2017, Taiwan’s population over 65 will exceed its population under 14, the officials said.
They quoted tallies compiled by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics as indicating that a study from 2005 pinned the country’s average birthrate at 1.1 children per woman, far lower than the world average of 2.7 and the average of 1.6 in industrialized countries.
Compared with neighboring countries, Taiwan’s 1.1 was only slightly ahead of Hong Kong’s 1.0, but still lagging behind China’s 1.6 and Japan’s 1.3, they said.
Hell yeah families need to start having more than one kid. Have you ever had to teach an only child here? Mommy and Daddy’s little prince or princess with millions of dollars being thrown at the kid to ensure their genes get the best of everything (and of course, your responsibility to keep a special eye on their little precious…and all 15 of the other little preciouses suffering from a Napoleon complex). By all means, increase the birthrate so the parents can stop being obssessed with the one they’ve got and spread their madness over two or three or better yet, ten.
From the government’s perspective I could see how that makes sense in only one way: keep out the mainland hordes if/when they make their move.
Well I think the birthrate here is less than 2, and since virtually nobody wants to migrate here for the long term, first you will see Taiwan’s population age, and then shrink if something isn’t done about it. This has negative effects on the economy in general.
Less of a problem for Australia as we just increase our intake of skilled migrants who want to live there.
Someones gotta pay for all of those retirees
From the government’s perspective I could see how that makes sense in only one way: keep out the mainland hordes if/when they make their move.[/quote]
That’s right. The news articles in which Taiwan’s overpopulation problem is mentioned inevitably deal with Chinese immigration.
Population issues aside, my selfish concern is regarding my quality of life in MY neighborhood.
I understand ours is a highly coveted area (right next to the MRT) but they already built (rather, welded in place, I saw them do it) a couple of 20 floor thingies on top of the station, and built like 8 (going on to 10) other 20 floor towerlike pigeon cages a couple of blocks away. This mad building frency -at 300 thousand per ping, mind you- brings to mind awful memories (Quanzhou early 2000) with polluted air, traffic congestion, and fight for services (parking space, for example, which is currently inexistent).
Not only am I questioning the planning, but I am quite concerned about the quality. How supportive is the land on top of the MRT? This is right next to a waterbed, is there any danger of sinking/falling/whatever structural damage? Currently, most buildings on this street here are old style 4 floor ones. All the other mounstruosities are built or being built on the main road.
Did I mention that the old Japanese house had some almost two-story tall pinglang palm trees? And evergreens?
Yeah, I know, I think too much.
It would all work out okay if they would rebuilt the old houses on TOP of the apartment complexes, as penthouses.
actually i do think that in terms of usable land taiwans population is probably THE worlds largest. Considering that everyone lives on 1/3 of the island of Taiwan and that the rest is mountainous?