Out of all the incumbents facing the electorate later this year, I’d bet Hou You-yi’s spot is one of the safest. Sorry @Marco !
Guy
You’re calling the election 8 months ahead? That’s ballsy.
I’ll also say that @DrewC 's mayor will also be re-elected to another term—that is, if the DPP don’t move him out into some role in the national government first.
Guy
I think we shall wait until we are closer.
Mark my words. They are as good as unfrozen garlic! 
Guy
I’ll wait.
I’d agree. Hou You-Yi is a good mayor
Terrible mayor. 4 years of the same old tired bullshit.
I think he used to be the commissioner of the national police agency. That means if he’s a hammer, everything looks like nails.
Don’t knock if it ain’t broken.
New Taipei City is a significantly better place to live now than it was when I first came to Taiwan 7 years ago. Maybe that’s not because of the mayor, but he’s never irked me the wrong way, and I think he handled the pandemic well in comparison to Taipei mayor.
I think he’s a hammerfor.
I disagree. New Taipei City has not changed very much and many of the problems with living in New Taipei City continue to plague it.
Maybe you live in an area close to Banciao, but if you’re out of that area, you might as well be ignored.
We’re not a city, we’re a commuters district.
Hou You-Yi’s involvement in and later comments on Cheng Nan-jung’s arrest and self-immolation should preclude him from ever participating in Taiwanese politics.
Yes I do, Xinzhuang, so maybe you are right.
Xinzhuang, especially 上Xinzhuang is basically unrecognizable. The number of developments that have gone up, the change in demographics, shifting from old people to young families has been phenomenal.
Large swaths of the district, including my former shop, have been demolished for his “progress”.
I’m not sure why he’s in such a big hurry to do this, why not do little bit at a time, when it’s cheaper and would displace fewer people.
What’s this?
Sure, and Xinzhuang is not far from jobs galore.
New developments in many other places have been built, not with building materials corruption, but with developers like farglory attempting to cash in quickly with houses and developments that make no sense or contribution to their communities. Affordable developments are far away from jobs. Taipei County planned that 600 000 people would live in Danshui. We have ONE office building. Traffic is at an all time high. The land zoned for commercial is nothing but houses and shops. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for mixed development, but housing land already allows for mixed development. You’re punished if you open a home office with increased taxes, increased rates for water and hydro and/or building code violations.
This is similar in Sansia. Sansia’s new town is a bit more mature than Danshui’s, but the entire commericially zoned land is nothing but houses. Is a hardware store and a carrefour something that provides jobs? Or did Farglory ensure we will be stuck in traffic for eternity going to Taipei and Banciao where the office jobs are.
Danshui’s supposed to be 600 000 people as the Taipei County government planned for that. Mississauga has 700 000 people and numerous buildings for middle class white collar jobs. Where’s anyone supposed to set up an office for their new small business? Taipei? For insane overpriced rents? How does this do nothing but hurt the ability to make jobs? I like Danshui, the tourism spot and three universities do at least bring economic productivity but…we can’t survive on this alone. Danshui is connected at least, though the increased wait times on the MRT do not help, buses are increasingly disorganised and the LRT is so out of the way it doesn’t solve the issue for most of the people living here and that a niche group of people actually living beside a station are among the few that actually benefit.
Sansia’s new MRT suffers from a similar problem. Instead of running through its most populated area, it skims the edge of the entire planned city and old part of the city, adjacent to a few high rises at most.
In this map of Sansia and part of Shulin…because reasons.
Yellow are places where density is high but not practical to walk to the MRT.
Red are places that appear close, but do not have any meaningful walking connections to the MRT line.
And Cyan shows people who are close, but they’re much closer to the highway so they won’t take it to commute to Taipei.
This is how it works on the bigger fringe districts.
The smaller ones really get the shaft.
This is Shihmen. The entire place is falling apart. Transportation is particularly poor. Same applies to Wanli, Jinshan and Sanzhi to a lesser extent. They haven’t seen any improvement.
Linkou and Bali may have developments, but as seen how the buses to Taipei regularly fill up, it’s clear they didn’t build any job creators. Bali, their major employer is factories and the port.
New Taipei has a lot of potential to ease the strain, especially with this unaffordability crisis in Taipei, but squanders them to create unproductive neighbourhoods that a good chunk of people use to park their cash to begin with.
New Taipei City is not a city. They have no idea what goes on beyond Banciao and its satellites.
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But that’s probably where all the politicians get kickbacks.
You know those in power usually don’t care about the country or the people.
So you can’t open a home office at all? Does that mean startups are forced to open offices in Taipei? What about New Taipei industrial park? Place don’t seem to have much traffic at all, except for a bunch of upscale furniture stores and stuff.
The problem with politics is that this may be what people need, but even with a good leader they most likely do not answer to the people who elected them, but to a much smaller group of people who supports them. And the goals of both groups are mutually exclusive.
You know a bunch of these residential properties will likely sit around empty so people can park their money into it.
Xinzhuang is split up by people who live here, not officially into 上新莊 and 下新莊.
Dividing line? I’m somewhat familiar with 新莊 in general