That’s a great description!
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Every community has its own thing going on. Some are laid out amazingly with working gyms and pools for decades, others shut the pool after 3 years.
New places tend to be pretty nice to live in but yes apartments on the small side. Its nice having decent wondows, clean kitchens, electronic doors, a gym or a pool.
Almost always better outside of Taipei. Taipei is just too crowded.
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Our hood has been approached by developers 3 times. They finally gave up. If the sellers do not like the deal, they won’t sell.
The owners get money and one or two properties. Most elderly move to modern elevator buildings at a certain point, leaving their precious gonwu empty except for the garbage sorry, personal belongings…and the rats. Hence, the rats fest.
They won’t move if they live on a lower floor/are poor,/are stubborn-stingy enough.
The force them to sell clause is not employed based on the public memory of a case in Taipei where “the boys” were sent to “convince” a lone dissenter no seller. The guy was killed and the building literally stood without tenants nor demolishing for almost 30 years. They just rebuilt it recently. RIP.
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I know your neighbourhood ,it doesn’t help that the nearby market was built on top of a sewer, an open sewer. 
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i find many neighborhoods with a good mix like that, my personal favorites are around xinyi anhe mrt, Nanjing fuxing mrt, gongguan mrt and tianmu.
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Xindian is also good especially if you lke the riverside. Shipai, even Neihu, Muzha, all good. Heck some folks like Yonghe riverside area.
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They should build normal buildings. All this types of buildings where there real ping is 3 times less and the monthly fee is high doesn’t make any sense.
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This is due to the location in Taipei city where they will focus more on luxury buildings . That’s the only way they make good profits.
as mentioned there are plenty of social housing projects in Taiwan now. Or one can just move outside Taipei.
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Most elites in Latin America do which explains the car centric designs overriding local needs. Told you of a US educated Minister of Transportation who insisted that the solution to our four hour daily gridlocks was increasing speed limits because that is what he was taught. However, implementing that in a place with no roads, and by that I mean no asphalt covered tarmac, nothing but a donkey trail, no traffic signs nor lights, no sidewalk, np shoulders…well, you get why that did not go that well.
Suburbia was invented to keep everyone in their place, divided by economic and racial status. That sounds great for elites in developing countries but it stalls development furthermore.
And for the record, our favelas are much nicer and work a lot better because they are self contained units with services much handier than what folks in suburbia or inner cities get. They even have their own security forces.
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Yeah Taiwan has taken way too much urbanism practices from the U.S. Place is much too small and populated to be so car centric
But specifically how is Minsheng community US design. Maybe the U.S. was actually good at this at the time?
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Back when Xindian looked like Kyoto, as my elderly neighbors tell, the sewer was more like a river with fishies and stuff. That’s why our houses were built here. Like, 60 years ago.
I got to see the huge trees demolished one by one, except an elderly one people have fought to keep, who knows for how long. The bustling market was killed off by COVID, and the elderly tenants are gone, young folk buy online or at the supermarket.
The upper part of the now sewer has been covered and turned into part of the bike path towards the riverside park. Further down, almost by Bitan, a similar ditch was cleaned and rejuvenated and it is back to its Japanese era former glory.
So there are two options to fix that, just little budget and also little incentive as most owners do not live here and renters have no vote. Urban renewal is a hard sale.
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Must go back to check cos it was Goddamned embarrassing rich ppl living like 3rd world.
I’m guessing Minsheng community was planned by an educated elite of Taiwanese, likely KMT mainland types who acquired the land east of the airport very cheaply or even via eminent domain. One would presume they drew on some western planning principles in terms of ratio of parks to buildings (there are a shit load of parks here) and also provision of space for curbside tree planting. Even in my rat infested alley everyone has pot plants and bonsai on their property frontage. (Which only serve to give the rats safe harbor)
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Was the first American model community
Don’t Americans all live in the suburbs and drive 40 minutes to Applebees or the convenience store
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Ehem park planning in Taipei is Japanese. There were far more parks and public works at that time. The blues followed a bit but urbanized most.
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Read the report. This was in the sixties, that land was not part of the Japanese town planning.
Urban renewal is a euphemism. It’s more like destruction. After the “renewal” you end up with less greenery (old trees chopped down) and less sunshine (taller buildings blocking it). Renewal is easy, you just knock something down and put in a new one. Preservation takes effort, and most people prefer easy.
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But Minsheng doesn’t look like US urbanism in the 60’s. Maybe the US just funded the project, or whoever planned the streets had some sense.
Everytime I go there, there are places that remind me of Europe. Not the architecture style, but the layout with sidewalks and trees. Taiwan’ streets do not usually have sidewalks or trees.
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Yeah reminds me a bit of leafier parts of north london
The Minsheng Community (民生社區) originally took shape as a planned residential quarter built by the U.S. militar y, and there’s parkland and other green spaces aplenty.