Some other stuff about Linkou.
The traffic into Taipei is a pain during peak hours. However if you work and live in Linkou it isn’t a problem.
Living in Linkou and working in Taipei would be a real pain.
An interesting observation, as Linkou in fact used to be part of Taoyuan County, before it was handed over to Taipei County (now rebranded as New Taipei City). Take the old and make it new! : P
Guy
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I moved to Linkou from HK. I really like it in Linkou. The parks and environment are great for my children, and the overall environment feels safer and more laid back. I lived in Mid-Levels and worked in Central for 10 years, so I was fed up with the high paced, and dense lifestyle. I used to love downtown Taipei when I was younger, but the motorbikes and the density feel a bit suffocating, esp when trying to give my kids a nice environment to grow up in. Linkou feels a lot closer to the type of environment that I grew up in, in the US. Also the access to golf and sports in general is great.
Before moving here, looked at Neihu and Da Zhi. All super nice and high end, but not a down to earthiness feel for my kids to grow up in. Also Neihu was a bit far from the airpot IMO. Pre-covid I flew about 3 times a month, and the airport link is awesome. Under 20 minutes to Taoyuan. If I fly in late at night, a 20 minute car ride.
The area is lacking in great restaurants but I think that will be changing significantly over the next 5 years with further economic development. There was a big announcement with NTD 24 billion being invested into Linkou to house the headquarters of Sanli and Dong Sen, and an expansion of the Outlet Park (links below) as part of establishing Linkou as a major media Hub of Taiwan. There’s also a huge area of land being redeveloped for industrial use (high tech factories, office space) - since Linkou is a planned community they have a lot of zoned land - which is great right when global supply chains are pivoting back to Taiwan.
Linkou is the suburbs, but it is attracting a lot of established, high earning professionals from overseas. It’s just not well publicized yet it seems.
The drive in the morning and afternoon rush hours suck. But other than those hours it’s a 20-30 minute drive to most places in the city. Also - finding street side parking in Linkou is much easier, and much cheaper. The you bike system is also great, with several planned bike paths throughout the city.
If you are coming from the US and seek a more urban lifestyle change of pace, maybe it’s not for you. But if you are like me, coming from a dense urban lifestyle for over a decade, and want to stay in Asia, be near but not imbedded into a major Asian city, Linkou is great.
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Believe it when I see it . A lot of local professionals live there though.
There’d also no real commercial office center yet which as mentioned above is pretty stupid since most people commute Taipei and places like Neihu .
It’s not the same as Sanxia either it’s scale is much bigger. I quite like Linkou overall, it has some parks and decent pavements but it’s planning still could have been better with dependence on the motor vehicle pretty extreme.
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Some links on the media city to be completed in the next 4 years:
Article on foreigners buying in Linkou (particularly from hk like myself)
It’s also over the bridge (10 minute drive) from the Guishan Tech Park - which houses quite a few large companies including Micron. Again, there’s a huge land redevelopment project in Linkou to house more offices and factories.
There is a cluster of International Schools:
https://www.mca.org.tw (Morrison Academy - massive new campus)
Linkou Campus :: KCIS, Kang Chiao International School (Kang Qiao - massive new campus)
http://www.aaia.ntpc.edu.tw
IMO it’s a decent place to invest if you have a 5-10 year horizon. In the last 3 years the population has gone from 80,000 to 120,000. It’ll probably hit 200,000 in the next 2-3 years.
Have you ever tried riding from Taipei to Linkou? Unless you have a light road bike with 20 or more gears, it’s a Sisyphean feat on a youbike. I’ve tried it a couple times, and both times I had to dismount to push my bike up the hill. If you know of a way from Taipei to Linkou with a gentle, rideable grade, let me know.
Uh, I suspect the comment was made about using youbike within Linkou, not using youbike as a way to commute to and from Taipei City! 
On the youbike front: I could not help but notice, as a very occasional user of Linkou’s youbikes, the locals there habitually use the baskets as garbage bins—an unlovely old-school practice that seems to be viewed as very bad form in the capital.
Hey Linkouites: please learn some manners! : P
Guy
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OK calling Linkou a city is pushing it. You can’t even find a cab on the streets of Linkou.
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Thank you for the invaluable feedback
Unless there is large scale immigration I think it’s up in the air about how many will move there.
But I think it’s better than Taoyuan and Sanxia personally. But still very poor planning essentially a lot of blocks drawn on a map with wide roads in between.
And again…I like Linkou I just think Taiwan needs to be more imaginative for how residential schemes are designed.
I much prefer Taichung city and how it integrated it’s new areas but it’s lacking the direct airport connection .
Taichung is a mess.
Look, every city in Taiwan is a mess except Taipei and Kaohsiung (the two cities with the strongest imprint of Japanese urban planning). But even in Taiwan’s messed up cities, you can usually find neighborhoods that actually work.
Guy
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cough Taoyuan cough
But you’re right. The newer neighborhoods around the Taoyuan HSR station seem laid out well.
I see your Taoyuan, and raise you Zhongli! : P
Guy
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Japanese urban planning?
I think the messy road layout is BECAUSE of the Japanese.
This looks just like Taiwan.
An interesting point! What you’re mixing up here though is that the complex urban layout immediately visible in cities such as Tokyo or Osaka are there because they were castle towns in the Edo Period—the layout was designed to prevent outsiders from successfully making their way to the castle. It still works, helping to keep tourists lost, at least in the pre-COVID-19 era!
The more correct comparison would be with cities that were laid out in the modern era (i.e. after the Meiji Restoration): Sapporo in Hokkaido, Shinkyo (now Changchun) in Manchuria (now the PRC), or—if you want to bring Tokyo back into the picture—the Ginza and Marunouchi districts, which were laid out in “western” style as grids.
Taihoku and Takao (now known as Taipei and Kaohsiung) were also for the most part laid out in this manner after the Japanese arrived in 1895.
Cheers,
Guy
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It’s not, I lived there for years and it has many very nice neighbourhoods indeed. Art museum area, science museum area , nantun, seventh district , xitun, zhongqiu, beitun, all pretty decent in their own right. Much better and newer housing than Taipei and also more parks too. Having lived in many places in Taipei and around Taiwan I think Taichung city’s neighbourhoods are amongst the best you can find. Now they are getting a new mrt line which is connecting up a lot of them. The main part it drops down on is lack of riverside cycle paths in my opinionalong with lack of well paid jobs.
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They were only recently ‘unmessed’ due to massive investment in public transport and also expanded pavements. The artificial thing of calling Taipei the tiny part that is core Taipei is a real cheat card.
This is true. But the basis “bones” in terms of planning were already there. Of course these more recent changes since the 1990s have been crucial to make them better cities.
Guy