On January 24, 2005, fireworks burst over the quiet locale of Chichin in Kaohsiung. On that day, Taiwan's first-ever wastewater treatment exhibition opened. It was all smiles at the opening ceremony for then-mayor Frank Hsieh.

Compared to his many election rallies over the years, the opening ceremony, attended by only 100 or so people from the local area, was small potatoes. Nonetheless it was a symbol of the high approval ratings Hsieh received for his time in office, and a showcase for the fruits of all the money the central government has been deliberately pouring into Kaohsiung these past few years.

One invisible giant leap

"Bad water" was once the bane of Kaohsiungites' existence. Only 6% of wastewater was treated via a modern system, and large numbers of pig farms were packed in along the upstream sections of the Love (Ai) and Chienchen Rivers, not to mention the astonishing density of chemical and petrochemical plants in Kaohsiung. It was impossible for anyone in the city to drink the water with peace of mind, and the Love River was literally lifeless.

Frank Hsieh, who took office near the end of 1997, not only rechanneled and cleaned up the Love River, but also made the "invisible" task of increasing the amount of wastewater undergoing treatment a major goal. By the time he left office to become premier in late 2004, that 6% figure had reached 35%.

Moreover, not only did the central government pour in billions in subsidies, the Environmental Protection Administration set out with an iron fist to shut down all pig-raising operations on the headstream of the Love and Chienchen Rivers. The result of all this effort was that water quality improved and the Love River revived.

"Of course the investment by the central government in Kaohsiung has been related to political considerations, but the natural and human environments of Kaohisung have unquestionably improved," says Steve Lin, a professor of economics at National Chengchi University. "So now Kaohsiung, which for so long lived in Taipei's shadow, seems to have a new sense of self-confidence, and feels that it is genuinely on a par with Taipei."

According to the Global Cities Competitiveness Report 2005-2006, prepared under the joint auspices of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and Bucknell University in the US, Taipei ranks 48th for competitiveness (though second only to Hong Kong among Chinese cities), whereas Kaohsiung is put at No. 77. They are the only two cities from Taiwan to make the list.

The report evaluates 110 cities worldwide on 75 indicators, including human resources, business operations, and living environment. It's worth noting that when you look at specific categories, Kaohsiung ranks 14th for urban environment, and second for competitiveness of consumer services, ahead of Taipei (16th and third, respectively) in both categories.

"Kaohsiung started later than Taipei, but had the advantage of urban planning, so the gap between the two was not that big to start with," says Tseng Tzu-feng, a professor of urban planning at National University of Kaohsiung. He says, for example, that in terms of area devoted to parks, greenery, playgrounds, athletic fields, or plazas, Kaohsiung has nearly five hectares per 10,000 citizens, and has always had about double the comparable figure for Taipei.

Harboring ambitions

Yet despite the fact that people say the two cities are in conflict with one another, "If you look at the main policies over the past eight years, there is a high degree of similarity between Taipei and Kaohsiung," says Kuo Jui-kun, an associate professor at National Sun Yat-Sen University. Frank Hsieh rescued the Love River and built Urban Spotlight in hopes of altering the Harbor City's traditional image as a rough town with hard edges, transforming it into a recreation-filled coastal town suited to the middle class. In Taipei, former mayor Ma Ying-jeou initiated the annual Taipei International Marathon, built a number of citizen health and fitness centers, and emphasized cultural events and quality of life.

"Most cities, from Seoul to Beijing and Shanghai, have been trying to win the spotlight with major infrastructure and construction; but Taipei and Kaohsiung have been moving in a different direction," says Kuo. Having been through periods of intensive development and heavy industrialization within city limits, both Taipei and Kaohsiung are now cultivating more humanized moods and a softer face, indicating a shift in the former urban development strategy of economics above all.

But Asian megacities like Beijing, with the 2008 Olympics, and Hong Kong with its Disneyland, have been hogging the limelight with large-scale projects; the micro-level operations in Taipei and Kaohsiung get much weaker play in the media.

A more practical issue is that urban upgrading requires a firm handle on economic development. But growth at Kaohsiung Harbor--the city's lifeline--has been stagnant, reflecting a downward slide in the competitiveness of local industry.

"Originally there was a plan to build a sixth container terminal at Hungmaokang, but it looks like that idea can be shelved," says one commercial shipper, looking out of his office window at the sparseness of the traffic in the Lingya District, the vortex of merchant shipping firms in Kaohsiung.

Shedding its industrial past and embracing tourism and leisure have been the hallmarks of urban development in Kaohsiung in recent years. The photo shows the Liuho Night Market, a 60-year old landmark of which it is said, "If you haven't been to Liuho, you haven't been to Kaohsiung."

In trouble together

With the rise of Shenzhen and other harbor cities, Kaohsiung, once the world's third biggest handler of containers, has fallen to sixth. Besides a stagnation in volume of traffic, the city's economic indicators also reflect the problems of Taiwan's leading port city: In 2005, average unemployment for the whole year was 4.2%, among the highest in the country. Moreover, looking at annual household disposable income, Kaohsiung at NT$0.96 million is only slightly above the national average (NT$0.89 million), far behind Taipei's NT$1.24 million.

In the last eight years, both Taipei and Kaohsiung have faced rising unemployment rates. In 1998, when both Hsieh and Ma first took office, the jobless rate in Taipei was 2.6%, while in Kaohsiung it was 3.4%. By 2005, it had risen to 3.9% in Taipei and 4.2% in Kaohsiung. In recent years, a resurgence in the global economy has much improved the situation for business. But for these two special municipalities to find the energy to serve as economic engines and drive growth in their peripheries clearly presents a serious challenge.

Amidst the global trend toward megacities, though Taipei and Kaohsiung are relatively small, they are strategically located, so they can become even more important in the future. The photo shows Taipei's Songshan Airport.

Urban complexes

There are many examples of rivalry between capital cities and major industrial ports in other countries. In Japan, hearty Osakans from the Kansai region feel that they are very different from the Tokyoites of the Kanto region. And in France, the port city of Marseilles has for a long time now not seen eye to eye with Paris.

"In fact, Marseilles people and Kaohsiung people are a lot alike," comments Frenchman Stephane Ferrero, who resides in Taiwan. The two port cities are rough-and-ready, openhearted and outspoken, and feel put out by the way everybody focuses on the capital, to which they are loath to cede superior status.

Yet despite rivalry, Steve Lin remind us, "the central government and the municipal governments of Taipei and Kaohsiung have to recognize clearly that their main competitors are not each other."

Competition among cities is increasingly getting attention. The World Economic Forum, which has regularly published rankings of national competitiveness, added rankings of city competitiveness in 2004. And in 2005, academic Steve Lin, who has been closely following the impact of the rise of Chinese cities on Taiwan's cities, issued the first-ever evaluation of the competitiveness of cities with predominately ethnic Chinese populations in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

"Looking at the development of these cities, the most obvious phenomenon is the substitution effect." Lin points to the case of Hong Kong. Since the rise of Shenzhen, just a customs checkpoint away, a lot of the transshipment trade once monopolized by Hong Kong has been absorbed by Shenzhen. Moreover, as Shanghai solidifies its position as the Asia-Pacific regional financial center, will the financial industries in Hong Kong and Shanghai complement one another? Or engage in zero-sum competition? The threat of being functionally replaced by a competitor city now has to be incorporated into every municipality's development strategy.

Compared to newly rising cities in China, Taipei consists mostly of built-up residential districts, with only small amounts of land still available for development in Nangang and Kuantu. "Therefore," avers Steve Lin, "the key to future competitiveness will be whether Taipei can develop in close cooperation with Keelung and Taipei County."

"As for Kaohsiung," believes Tseng Tzu-feng, "the key is still in the free port zone." The reason the free port zone has not been as effective as had been hoped is "of course mainly because direct shipping to mainland China is forbidden. But the fact that Kaohsiung International Airport is too small and can't handle enough international routes is also a critical problem. Future planning should integrate sea with air transport, so even if Kaohsiung Harbor can handle at most only 10 million standard containers a year, that doesn't matter. The point is not numbers, but the value of the items being shipped."

The original thinking behind a free port zone at Kaohsiung Harbor was that sea and air transport would be linked and that trade and shipping would be opened with mainland China. With these conditions in place Taiwanese firms that have moved operations to China would take semi-finished goods from there and bring them back to Taiwan for sophisticated processing, after which they would be shipped out of Taiwan again. Such a production flow would keep high-end high-tech production in Taiwan while raising local efficiency. But the continuing ban on direct trade and shipping with China has greatly reduced the impact of the free port zone.

Culture is a useful tool for municipal development. As the most free, pluralistic, and creative of any ethnic Chinese city, Taipei can rightly be proud of its competitiveness.

Power boost

Medium-sized cities can get away with being "small but beautiful," but scholars unanimously agree that major cities that represent their countries must think big in order to squeeze into the "winners' circle," creating a magnet effect and generating influence for the country as a whole.

"This is why China has broadened the powers of city mayors, so that they can control all the variables and be directly responsible for their municipality--China is just too big, but individual cities can get up and running faster," opines Steve Lin. "Although Taiwan is not so big, given the overlap and layering of government hierarchy, mayors have very limited room for maneuver on policy."

"Taipei and Kaoshiung clearly cannot compete with emerging megacities in terms of the physical size of their jurisdictions. But with the opening of the Taipei-Ilan highway, the high-speed railway, and the Kaohsiung MRT, the hinterlands for both cities have been greatly expanded, so there is a lot of potential there for both," says Liou Yao-hwa, an associate professor of urban planning at Feng Chia University. Improvements in transportation can transform a city's functional size, and today Taipei's "effective influence" extends to Ilan (which offers mainly agriculture and tourism) and, via the high-speed railway, to high-tech Hsinchu and heavily industrialized Taoyuan.

And in Kaohsiung, links with the NT$2-trillion Tainan Science Park and the Kaohsiung Science Park at Luchu, Kaohsiung County, mean that the Kaohsiung region--long a center of gravity for traditional industries--has gotten aboard the high-tech train as well. "Compared to Hong Kong and Singapore, which have only their harbors and financial industries, Taipei and Kaohsiung are still in an advantageous position," avers Liou.

The question is, what should be done to bring their advantages fully into play? The uniform suggestion of scholars is that there is an urgent need to extend the administrative powers of city governments.

To take one example: "The Kaohsiung MRT system will start running at the end of 2007," says Steve Tseng, standing outside the last station on the Red Line at Chiaotou in Kaohsiung County, "but still nobody knows how this piece of land is going to be used, " because Chiaotou is outside Kaohsiung City's jurisdiction.

"It's not just Chiaotou Township. Kaohsiung City should be able to have coordinating functions that reach into Pingtung County and Kaohsiung County, and in fact the Democratic Progressive Party has long advocated 'integration' of Pingtung County, Kaohsiung County, and Kaohsiung City," says Steve Tseng. "As for Taipei, besides integrating the city with Taipei County, Taipei's financial and logistical capabilities need to be combined with the high-tech capabilities of Taoyuan and Hsinchu so that its competitiveness can be taken up to the next level."

Liou Yao-hwa's view is that Taiwan's future development should have three urban concentrations at its core. "Northern Taiwan should have Taipei at its heart, and include Ilan, Keelung, Taipei County, Taoyuan, and Hsinchu. With a population of about 9.5 million, it would be on a par with Belgium. The five counties of Central Taiwan would have Taichung City as their center, being roughly comparable to Singapore. And Southern Taiwan, including Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung, with a population of about 7 million, would be slightly larger than Hong Kong."

"In the future, if the administrative boundaries can be redrawn, the three core cities of Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung should be given the power to 'flexibly absorb' neighboring townships, to give them more power to lead the way in creating regional competitiveness."

The living environment is better, but what about the business environment? Falling rents at office buildings show that Taipei and Kaohsiung are both facing problems. The photo shows the World Trade Center and Taipei 101 in the Hsinyi District.

Leadership

When the glory of a city overshadows that of a country, outstanding municipal leaders often become political stars whose influence extends across the country and even beyond its borders.

A case in point is incumbent Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe. Since taking office he has successfully improved the quality of life in the city, reduced pollution, solved traffic bottlenecks, and established pedestrian zones. "One clear example is that in the past the streets of Paris were littered with dog poop, and nobody thought there was anything that could be done about it, but he did something about it," says one Frenchman now living in Taiwan. As a result, although Delanoe is the first left-wing mayor of Paris in a century, his leadership has won him wide-ranging support, turning him into a national, and even European, political figure.

"As urban scale increases, and problems become increasingly complex, voters are more inclined to find 'decisive' politicians attractive," suggests Steve Lin.

Both incoming mayors, Hau Lung-bin in Taipei and Chen Chu in Kaohsiung, are known from their previous cabinet experience to be strong leaders. But it is no simple task that lies before them. Looking abroad, powerful challengers are arising across Asia; closer to home, peripheral towns and cities need to be uplifted; looking up the political hierarchy, there are limitations imposed by central government and the legal structure; looking downward, the mayors must face the fickle public opinion of a democratic age. In this era of intensified competion between cities, their leadership will be the key to success or failure.

You have Taipei 101, we have the 85-story Tuntex Sky Tower. There has been a long-running rivalry between Taipei and Kaohsiung, but now the two must work with the common goal of meeting the challenges posed by rising Asian megacities.

One is in the north, one in the south, one dominated by the Pan-Blue political forces, the other traditionally Pan-Green... but under the banner of "citizen welfare" both Taipei and Kaohsiung have pursued the common goal of raising the quality of life. You can see the attention to detail devoted to leisure spaces in Taipei's Museum of Contemporary Art (left) and Kaohsiung's Urban Spotlight (right).

One is in the north, one in the south, one dominated by the Pan-Blue political forces, the other traditionally Pan-Green... but under the banner of "citizen welfare" both Taipei and Kaohsiung have pursued the common goal of raising the quality of life. You can see the attention to detail devoted to leisure spaces in Taipei's Museum of Contemporary Art (left) and Kaohsiung's Urban Spotlight (right).

A dilapidated old park has been turned into Kaohsiung's most well-known urban landmark. Urban Spotlight offers residents not only coffee and music, but a whole new lifestyle.