"The only effective way the western districts of Taipei can be transformed is if they adhere closely to the concept of urban regeneration," says John Chien-yuan Lin, deputy mayor of Taipei City. And this is someone who knows whereof he speaks. Before becoming deputy mayor, Lin was the head of the Department of Finance of the Taipei City Government and he has also been a professor in the National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, specializing in urban development.

He states that "transformation," the avowed aim of a program launched 12 years ago to reinvigorate the venerable Wanhua and Datong districts of the city, is a very ambitious goal. There are many complex details that have to be included in planning and the city government is still in the process of working through these.

That notwithstanding, Lin says with confidence: "Although there is as yet no way to predict what the final results will be, one thing is certain: because this is not merely a matter of tearing down old low-rise buildings and putting up new high-rise ones, but also of preserving unique historical and cultural aspects within the framework of sustainable development, things are certainly moving in a positive direction in terms of the structural transformation of the city and its future competitiveness."

Lin points to Bopiliao as one successful example. Since reopening in August of 2009, this center for preservation of history, culture, and local character has had 230,000 visits.

What about criticisms that Bopiliao is "artificial"? Urban regeneration is a public issue involving open and pluralistic discourse, responds Lin, so he doesn't dismiss such criticisms outright. But his view is that, considering the decrepit condition of Bopiliao and the fact that nothing had been done to maintain the original mud brick walls and wooden floorboards, even if only from the point of view of safety there was no getting around extensive renovation. (For more on Bopiliao, see the accompanying article in this issue.)

On the other hand, Lin rejects full-scale modernization, and says that trying to do something like create a skyline of office and apartment buildings that would rival the Xinyi District Project Area "would ruin the ambience completely!" He favors making the most of local cultural resources, thinking about the character of the structures and surrounding environment, and then coming up with flexible solutions that meet the needs of each situation.

Lin's analysis is that there are three major factors allowing a commercial zone to develop: safety, uniqueness, and quality of the surrounding area. These criteria are already fulfilled by the successful shopping areas existing in the old neighborhoods of western Taipei, such as Dihua Street (where you can find many shops specializing in unusual or traditional food products) and Bo'ai Road (lined with countless camera stores).

Pointing to the Red House area in Ximending as an example of a revitalized area, Lin notes that gay entrepreneurs have built on the area's history and their shared cultural values to create a collective consciousness among shop owners. The result has been remarkable.

However, in stark contrast to the vitality around Red House stands the economically stagnant Longshan Temple Underground Shopping Bazaar. The city removed a traditional market from land that was zoned for a park and created instead a newly constructed underground mall with traditional market sellers getting spaces in the mall. Many of the shops soon failed for lack of customers.

Lin admits that the bazaar presents a serious problem. In an attempt to turn the situation around, the city government has invested a great deal of effort in managing Bangka Park-which provides the immediate environment over the underground bazaar-and the mall itself. For example, after intervention by the city's Department of Social Welfare, some of the homeless who lived in the renovated Bangka Park have been resettled in halfway houses and those not willing to leave the park have at least been offered free medical checkups, showering stations, and other services.

The second underground level (B2) of the Longshan Bazaar has been the hardest problem. Deciding to start from scratch, in 2007 the city government gave B2 shops compensation of NT$840,000 each to move out, then a new management team from the Taiwan Association of Service Industries was brought in through a public bidding process to be responsible for recruiting new shops. B2 is now mainly devoted to nostalgic consumer culture aimed at the older generation, such as traditional tea houses, karaoke, and old-fashioned beauty shops. To ensure that all the shops will have a chance to operate profitably, Lin requested that the new management team control the types and numbers of shops carefully to ensure that there really was sufficient demand for their goods and services to keep them all going. B2 is gradually finding its niche, and prospects for businesses there are much improved.

Lin emphasizes that an urban renewal project on a scale such as the one involving the Wanhua and Datong districts of Taipei City is entirely new for Taiwan. Naturally the course will be two steps forward, one step back. With respect to the underground bazaar, says Lin, "All you can say is that there was collective over-optimism when the plans were being made."

But Lin adds that what is most important is that in the process, both government and citizens accumulate knowledge and experience. After all, "transformation" in Taipei affects huge numbers of people and involves enormous budgets and long time spans. It is also necessary to take into account views from many different actors and to confront the gap between the ideal and the possible.

On another front, the draft of a proposed "Taipei Industrial Development Ordinance" has been completed and will be sent to the city council. It lays out incentives and subsidies for certain types of construction, as well as funds for small and medium enterprises from Taipei to assist local industries in making technical improvements in their products or in innovating in terms of services and marketing.

Another variable affecting redevelopment in Wanhua is that in recent years, a number of large construction groups with very deep pockets have moved into the district. This is something, says Lin, that the city government is happy about.

Lin's old comrade-in-arms, Hsia Chu-joe, chairman of the NTU Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, in a recent interview with Commonwealth Magazine regarding urban redevelopment in western Taipei, said that the whole world is facing the phenomenon of "gentrification" in the wake of urban renewal. This is often, as he summed it up, poor people selling their homes to wealthy people, then leaving their communities and ending up the losers when the value of their former properties skyrockets. Meanwhile the old neighborhoods, with their special characteristics, though surviving in name, cease to exist in practice.

But Deputy Mayor Lin has a different take on this. He feels that the polarized logic of "winners" and "loser" is not fair. After all, under conditions of a free market mechanism, so long as both buyer and seller are willing, and there is no compulsion or fraud, sellers have the opportunity to take the money and relocate, raising the quality of the housing they live in. Even if the buyers don't intend to live in these houses, but are investors or speculators, there is no guarantee that they will make a profit when they turn around and resell. So who really wins and who really loses? Or is it a win-win scenario? Right now nobody knows for sure.

Evaluating the fruits of the "transformation" that has been going on for more than 10 years, Lin says that Taipei has been through decades of development to become the city it is today, and the renewal programs of the city government may take even longer.

"But I think that we are going in a correct and efficient direction and moving forward step by step." He urges citizens to get out more and walk around, looking with an open mind, and also urges them to offer more suggestions of their own. When the transformation is complete, we'll still have the old soul, but a new Bangka.