Right after fighting to host the Asian Games, Kaohsiung once again showed a resolve to promote itself and pull people in. But this time Kaohsiung isn't throwing its gauntlet at Taipei's feet. Instead it is urging Taipei folk to "get out of Taipei and become acquainted with Kaohsiung."
"Give Taipei a chance, but give Kaohsiung a chance too," is how people from the southern city put it.
In late December, the 1998 Kaohsiung Metropolis Exhibition was held at the Taipei International Convention Center. The Kaohsiung Metropolitan Development Foundation spent NT$6 million to put on the show. At the show, they weren't selling famous local delicacies or new gizmos, but something about which people seem simultaneously well acquainted and ignorant: Greater Kaohsiung.
This was the first time a city in Taiwan has held an exhibition to promote itself. Why does Kaohsiung want to sell itself? And why did they come to Taipei to do it?
Top-heavy island
There is an old expression that goes "Taipei for government, Kaohsiung for industry." There has long been unbalanced development that has led many to describe the island as "top heavy."
Juju Wang, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Tsing Hua University, notes that all of the central government agencies are located up north in Taipei. The city has two-thirds of the island's universities, over 90 percent of the corporate headquarters, and over 90 percent of its media. The magnetic draw of Taipei has made it an over-loaded city with a deteriorating environment-"a poor place to live amid great wealth."
According to the Sinorama survey "The Image of Taipei City Residents' Satisfaction with Life There," denizens are unsatisfied with such aspects of the city as the cost of basic consumer goods, the housing situation, transportation and public safety.
"In various respects Taipei is no longer able to 'bear its burden,'" says Wang. He argues that the city will only resolve its problems when some or all of the central government agencies leave or the city expands. Kaohsiung could help by absorbing some of the central government agencies.
"As it happens, Kaohsiung can resolve Taipei's problems," says Wang Ming-shen, dean of the Institute of Public Affairs Management at Sun Yat-sen University, who notes that whereas Taipei has too many people, Kaohsiung has too few. They can help each other out.
Wang points out that last year 200,000 people moved out of Taipei, and that over the last five years, Taipei County has been adding about 50,000 people a year. In other words, people are constantly pouring out of the crowded inner city. Having Kaohsiung absorb some of these people would accomplish two policy goals: ease the pressures on Taipei and strengthen Kaohsiung.
Wang notes that obtaining high-quality white-collar middle-class workers is an important pre-condition for developing Kaohsiung. For years the bulk of Kaohsiung's population has been blue-collar workers, and as the young and talented have been leaving the city, development has been hindered.
Take, for instance, the fields of media and mass communications.
The media are concentrated in Taipei, and so the Government Information Office stipulated that the fourth over-the-airwaves TV station be established in Kaohsiung. In compliance with the law, Formosa Television is based in Kaohsiung. Yet for two or three years now, "the company's headquarters has been in Kaohsiung, but the station's headquarters has been in Taipei."
Although Formosa Television does have a staff of 40 and a fully equipped broadcast studio in Kaohsiung, and though the station has invested more in Kaohsiung than any other station, only two of its news programs-"Kaohsiung News at Nine" and "Live from Kaohsiung at Six"-are actually produced there. Its remaining shows are all produced and broadcast from Taipei.
Chen Shen-ching, the director of the Kaohsiung news center for the station, points out that the problem rests with a lack of money and personnel in Kaohsiung. "Don't ask whether Taipei people would be willing to come south; even people originally from Kaohsiung may not be willing to come back." He cites the example of make-up artists. In Kaohsiung you can't find people who can apply the make-up for news anchors, and finally he had to ask a friend from Taipei to come and help out. Directors are hard to find too. He has used newspapers, television and friends to try to find directors, but no one has answered his calls.
"You simply can't find people," says Tsui Ko-mei, manager of Experts Communication. To find project planners, the company recently took out a "help wanted" ad for a week. Only four people came to apply for the job, all of whom were unqualified.
Statistics show that one-fourth of people in Taipei have at least graduated from junior college; whereas in Kaohsiung that level of education has only been obtained by one-tenth of the population. Attracting middle-class white-collar workers to Kaohsiung is the key to turning around Kaohsiung's development.
No-nonsense city
Apart from attracting professionals, business ventures, and investment, another purpose of the recent "Kaohsiung Metropolis Exhibition" was to reduce the "psychological distance" between the people of Taipei and Kaohsiung.
In March of 1993, several supporters of the New KMT Alliance, a KMT faction composed primarily of second-generation mainlanders that was a predecessor of the New Party, left Taipei to make speeches in Kaohsiung, which is overwhelmingly Taiwanese. Unexpectedly, they encountered violent resistance from the locals in what became known as the "March 14 Incident." To the present day, memories of that day still frighten people. People say that the "New Party can't go south," which reveals that there exists a great gap between the north and south.
People have long characterized Kaohsiung by such adjectives as "straightforward," "no-nonsense," "wild" and "rough." While these may be stereotypical and shallow, there is nonetheless a measure of truth to them.
People who have lived both in Taipei and Kaohsiung hold that people in Kaohsiung are much more direct about expressing their emotions.
Wu Chien-kuo, the director of the Kaohsiung City Information Department, decided to make his home in Kaohsiung after living in both cities. "Taipei is like a middle-aged gentleman," he says, "cultured and well-mannered; Kaohsiung is like a youth-direct in expressing its feelings, prone to mistakes-but possessing a limitless future."
Wu Chin-fa, a writer for Kaohsiung's own Min Chung Daily News, emphasizes that Kaohsiungites "stress feeling." He contrasts going to a piano bar in Taipei with going to one in Kaohsiung: "In Taipei the bar girls judge how friendly they should be based on what kind of car a customer drives, whereas in Kaohsiung they 'go for feeling' and respect customers who are generous of spirit."
"Big," "bold," "heroic"
If you want to be successful on your job in Kaohsiung, says Wu, you've got to understand that employees "put a premium on feeling." This is especially the case in construction, where the boss has to spend time drinking Whisbi liquor with his staff and chewing betel nut if he is to get them to identify with him and give him their support.
Living in Taipei's shadow for so long, Kaohsiungites can't help but constantly compare their city to Taipei, and they've developed a habit of comparing everything based on size. Everywhere are hotels with "Imperial" or "Royal" in their names. There are KTVs and MTVs of 5000 square feet or more. The bigger something is, the more prestigious and popular.
Architecture is no exception. In a few years, the 50-floor Changgu Tower, once Kaohsiung's tallest building, will have slipped several places down the list. The 85-story Tuntex Building has been built, and catty-corner to it the foundations for the 103-story Far Eastern Tower, scheduled to be completed in 2007, are already being dug. When it is completed, Kaohsiung will have two of the world's ten tallest buildings. In the eyes of Hsia Chu-chiu, a professor at the Institute of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University, this is a naked attempt by this "unsophisticated city. . . devoid of professional skills" to show its "great size and ambition." To Taipei yuppies, this hankering after size seems a bit crass.
Spirit of the mountains and sea
Although there are numerous flights that can take you between Kaohsiung and Taipei in fifty minutes, the "psychological distance" is greater than from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Wang Ming-sheng holds that the impression that Taipei people hold of Kaohsiung, that city at the southwestern corner of the island, stops at broad streets, tall smokestacks, and big factories. These impressions are full of stereotypes and misunderstandings.
Yu Kwang-chung, a professor of foreign languages at Sun Yat-sen University who moved to Kaohsiung 13 years ago and has written many poems about the city, holds that Kaohsiung, which was "born beautiful," not only shouldn't give up on itself but should take the initiative to recommend itself to outsiders.
Just exactly what does this port city have to sell?
According to a survey recently carried out by the Kaohsiung Metropolitan Development Fund and the Institute of Public Affairs Management at National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung residents hold that the aspect of Kaohsiung most worthy of promoting to outsiders is its natural environment: its harbor, mountains, seashore, rivers, and mostly sunny weather.
Kaohsiung not only has three hills formed from coral rock-Panping Hill, Camel Hill and Shou Hill-it also is traversed by three channels of water: the Chienchen River, the Love Canal, and the Houching River. At the same time, it features famous Hsitzuwan Beach, which is a great place for snorkeling. Of course, Kaohsiung has a harbor that is the equal of New York's, Hong Kong's or Singapore's, making it unique among major Taiwanese cities. The protection provided by the Chijin peninsula (which is outside the city limits) makes it a natural harbor with few equals. Kaohsiung's excellent natural conditions are something about which 90 percent of Kaohsiungites are proud.
Taiwan's Hollywood
Formosa Television's Chen Shen-ching points out that on average it takes only 20 or 30 minutes to get to the blue ocean or the green mountains in Kaohsiung. For Taipei residents, who on weekends and vacations exhaust themselves snarled in traffic leaving town, and so find it difficult to achieve the intended result of relaxing the body and mind, it must seem a Heavenly pleasure.
Kaohsiung has good weather, and it enjoys Taiwan's earliest spring.
"Kaohsiung ought to be considered Taiwan's Hollywood," Wu Chin-fa argues, for the city has warm, sunny days all year long, and even winter weather that permits outings. It's the best kind of environment for making movies.
Aside from these excellent natural conditions, residential conditions are another thing about which Kaohsiungites are proud. Broad open spaces and convenient transportation, as well as housing that is "beautiful and cheap," all attract people to move to the city. Chang Tiao, the chairman of the Kaohsiung Architectural Professionals Association, points out that for similar housing at an equivalent distance from the city center, prices in Kaohsiung are only about one-third of what they are in Taipei. For members of the middle class, who are unable to keep up with the rising real estate prices in Taipei, this is a very attractive point in Kaohsiung's favor.
In Kaohsiung food and clothing also cost less. "Incomes aren't any lower than in Taipei, but you can get by quite well with less than a third of what you need in Taipei," says Chen Shen-ching. This was the main reason he was willing to uproot his family and move to Kaohsiung.
Toxic city?
Nevertheless, despite all of these points in its favor, there are certain areas in which Kaohsiung could stand to improve.
Wang Chun-hsiu uses such considerations as air quality, water quality, population density, noise, environmental budget, garbage growth, and level of industrialization to judge cities in his "Environmental Faces of Taiwan Cities" report. Over the last decade there have been three assessments, and each time Kaohsiung has been rated with an unhappy face. The main reason is that the air and water quality in Kaohsiung is poor.
Outsiders often are intrigued by the sight of people buying and selling water.
Kaohsiung's major source of running water comes from the Kaoping River, but agricultural pollution (both in the form of pesticides and livestock waste) and illegal dumping of garbage have seriously eroded the quality of Kaoping River water, which has received low water-quality designations for several years running. "Grade D water is not even up to standard for irrigation, but people in Kaohsiung are forced to drink grade E water," sighs Wu Chin-fa, shaking his head.
At a press conference promoting the 1998 Kaohsiung Metropolis Exhibition in Taipei, Deputy Mayor Lin Join-sane said that Kaohsiung's water has in fact clearly improved. He points out that since 1994, Kaohsiung has been separating water based on whether it was to go to industry or residences. Some of the water used by residents comes from the Nanhua Reservoir, less than 1 percent of which isn't up to grade. But the 100,000 tons that the Nanhua Reservoir can supply per day are less than one-third of the 350,000 tons the city requires. Since the city has to rely on the Kaoping River for the remainder, Kaohsiungers look skeptically on water company pronouncements and are in the habit of lugging containers out to buy water from trucks.
Air pollution provides another pain in the chest for Kaohsiungites. Even an out-and-out Kaohsiung lover like Yu Kwang-chung can't help but want to "sue the smokestacks": "They brazenly darken the blue southern sky one puff at a time, despoiling scenery that was pure and clean. They're like gangsters going after young girls, curses spewing from their mouths. . . ."
Since the majority of Kaohsiung's pollution comes from factory smokestacks, some describe them as the "big Trojan Horses" that destroy the city, as opposed to the "small Trojan Horses" that destroy Taipei: automobiles.
Wu Chin-fa points out that according to US standards, when sulfur dioxide emissions reach 80 ppb, they require urgent dispersion. Ten years ago Kaohsiung Medical College carried out a survey which showed that over the course of one year sulfur dioxide emissions averaged as high as 110 ppb. In the districts of Hsiaokang and Chiencheng, they even topped 125 ppb, making such designations as "toxic zone" or "uninhabitable area" not unreasonable.
Apart from the air pollution, Kaohsiung is also a city that suffers from a lack of oxygen. Wu points out that there isn't enough green space in the city, and that there is a pitiful lack of trees. Overcrowded Taipei has an average of 15 trees for every person, whereas in Kaohsiung there are only two trees for every person. As a result the city is putting a priority on planting trees in open spaces.
Hen eggs vs. chicken shit
In reality, the deterioration of air and water quality is not a problem unique to Kaohsiung. That it has reached crisis proportions there is an "historical tragedy."
Kaohsiung Mayor Wu Den-yih points out that the city has borne a disproportionate load of Taiwan's economic development. "For the last 50 years it has been a locomotive pulling Taiwan's industry forward. It's no wonder that it's feeling a bit overburdened, and is panting like an ox. . . ."
Under the export-oriented economic policies of the 1970s, Kaohsiung, starting with its export processing zone, gradually became an industrial center for ship breaking, steel smelting, oil refining and disposal of heavy metals. In 1990 Kaohsiung had more than 6000 factories within city limits, or 60-80 per square kilometer. It developed along these industrial lines because it had an excellent, deep natural harbor: the Port of Kaohsiung.
Wu Den-yih points out that Kaohsiung is, along with Singapore and Hong Kong, one of the world's three biggest container ports. Nevertheless, "Kaohsiung's wealth comes from the port, but so do its tragic aspects."
He points out that because coal, oil and iron ore all come in through the port, oil refining plants, petrochemical plants, steel mills and other big polluters are all concentrated in Kaohsiung. As a result, the chicken shit has stayed in Kaohsiung, whereas the eggs go up to Taipei." Wu cites China Petrochemical's refining plants: the environmental damage remains in Kaohsiung, but each year more than NT$10 billion in taxes from them are given to Taipei, where the company headquarters are located.
No longer smokestack cities
Although for more than a century, Taiwan has "emphasized the north, at the expense of the south" and accepted that geographical conditions have "necessitated" environmental degradation, this doesn't mean that things can't change. Abroad, there are many examples of cities that have successfully reformed and rebuilt themselves.
Formerly "smokestack cities," Pittsburgh and Cleveland are examples of cities that have successfully given themselves makeovers.
Wang Ming-shen points out that in the early eighties these two cities were suffering serious environmental problems and an exodus of people and jobs, as well as a shrinking tax base and dropping productivity as a result of industrial transformation. The cities were virtually bankrupt.
Cleveland was originally a center of machinery and steel. When the city fell on hard times, 30 local entrepreneurs formed a "roundtable" to find a way out of the mess. After four years of extensive discussions, they designed a strategic plan for the direction of future city development. Starting in 1984, this group was able to harness the collective energies of government and industry to promote and complete more than 10 public works projects, and through corporate self-awareness and community supervision were able to gradually improve the quality of the environment. After 10 years of hard work, the city had completely remade itself and become a model of urban renaissance.
Making a city of hope
"Emphasizing commerce over industry is the way for the city to go," says Huang Jun-ying, Kaohsiung's deputy mayor. The plan is for industries that produce a lot of pollution, consume a lot of energy and provide little added value to gradually leave the city. The proportion of the city's economy in the commercial and service sectors, on the other hand, will grow, so that the city has more balanced development. Huang notes that Kaohsiung is working toward this goal through rezoning industrial land for commercial use, making it ten times as valuable in the process. Big polluters in the city center, such as plants belonging to China Chemical and Pharmaceutical, will then be glad to sell out and move somewhere else.
Mayor Wu points out that a planned trinity of new public works projects-including the building of a multi-functional commercial park, the use of landfill to reclaim land from the sea, and a project to "integrate the city and the port"-will make Kaohsiung one of the cities in the Asia Pacific region with the greatest potential.
A 500-hectare site next to the harbor, which originally included a ship breaking yard, is now to become a "multi-functional commercial park" that will combine cultural and leisure functions with warehousing and transshipment, as well as industrial services and international trade.
The Nanhsing Plan aims to wrest land from the sea in the Talinpu Area south of the port. The 3000-hectare site that will emerge will allow for more goods to be loaded and unloaded at the port and allow for the establishment of an international airport, as well as provide for leisure and entertainment.
To proceed with the plan to integrate the city and the port, the city hopes to regain administrative authority over the port from the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau of the provincial government. In that way there could be integrated planning for transportation and scenic facilities, and the wealth that the port brings would finally benefit the people of Kaohsiung.
Work has already begun on the first two public works projects, and Kaohsiung is fighting with the central government about the third. Completing this trinity will ensure that Kaohsiung will have a future of unlimited potential.
At the opening of the 1998 Kaohsiung Metropolis Exhibition, Premier Vincent Siew also arrived to say that Kaohsiung has a natural port and an international airport, and that no other city in Taiwan has both these advantages, giving it unlimited potential.
But apart from establishing these facilities-the "hardware"-if the city wants to enter the ranks of international metropolises, raising cultural and educational levels-the "software"-is even more important.
According to the "Knowing Kaohsiung" survey conducted by the Kaohsiung Metropolitan Development Foundation, what most rankles Kaohsiungites about their city is its cultural and educational levels.
"Cultural work is like farming: planting seeds, cultivating shoots, and tending young plants require great patience," argues Wu Chin-fa. If Kaohsiung is to turn from being a cultural desert, as it is in most people's estimations, into being a cultural oasis, it will require long-term tilling of the cultural soil.
The fact is that this "cultural desert" has already been showing a will to turn itself green. Joe Lin, who opened the first of his chain of bookstores across from the city's train station eleven years ago, notes that the floor space of his stores has grown from about 6,500 square feet to about 650,000 square feet in the time since. He says that there has always been a market for books in Kaohsiung; it's just that no one was exploiting it before. Lin believes that the situation will improve as white-collar workers move back to the city, and that cultural activities in Kaohsiung have a great deal of room for future growth.
Expanding horizons
Improving Kaohsiung is something essential for Taipei and indeed the entire island.
Juju Wang points out that the "primacy theory" in national planning stresses that if there is a great disparity of development between the first and second cities of a nation, then it is not yet possible to consider it a developed nation. He points out that if all resources are concentrated in the largest city without consideration of other cities, then the nation will have no basis for balanced development. Many African nations suffer from just this problem.
"Kaohsiung is at the point where it is stepping out of the larger city's shadow," Wang says. If Kaohsiung wants to develop into an international city with a unique character of its own, then it can no longer "look northward and constantly compare itself to Taipei." It should transcend the Taipei model altogether, and "look beyond Taiwan" to such examples as Singapore and Hong Kong. It should raise its sights to being an "Asian-Pacific Center," competing with Taipei on some levels and cooperating on others. Only by so doing will it bring continuous, win-win development.
"This is a key moment for Kaohsiung," says Luo Chih-ming, a city council member. If Kaohsiung doesn't find a suitable blueprint for future development in these next few years, then six years from now, the high-speed railway will make it easy for people all along the West Coast to work in Taipei. It will, for instance, only take 45 minutes to ride from Taichung to Taipei. It will be even easier for people in middle and southern Taiwan to head north, and Kaohsiung will lose even more of its white-collar population.
Hence, at a press conference Deputy Mayor Huang asserted that various public works projects must get the go-ahead now. At this key moment, Kaohsiung is actively fighting to get businesses and people to look at it with "loving eyes."
Making a new Kaohsiungite
But Wang believes that public works are not the most pressing issue, because no matter how the city sells itself, even integrated community development won't solve the main problem, which lies with people.
So we're back to where we started: How is Kaohsiung to attract high-skilled white collar workers?
"Empty symbolic gestures such as 'Asia's tallest skyscraper' won't do it," says Juju Wang. "Only solving the pollution problem and creating a special city character will produce real 'city charm.'"
In recent years Kaohsiung has established quite a few educational and cultural facilities. Apart from the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts and the National Science and Technology Museum, the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, projected to be Asia's largest, will open in the year 2000.
Educational institutions help cultivate skilled people, and Kaohsiung has National Sun Yat-sen University, National Kaohsiung Institute of Technology, and Kaohsiung Hospitality College. In addition, preparations are now underway for a National University of Kaohsiung, which will draw many professors and students to the city. Mayor Wu notes, "These will all help to bring in new blood and revitalize the city."
Will the city be successful in its attempt to remake its residents?
In their shared hope for success in this endeavor, there is, for a change, no difference between north and south.
p.9
"The sky's the limit!"The 85-story Tuntex Building that rises from this crowd of skyscrapers exemplifies this sentiment that Kaohsiungites hold about their future.
p.11
People often gather along the banks of the Love Canal to play chess or chat. It's said that this is one of the city's best forums for residents to exchange their opinions. Usually their guesses about election results aren't far off the mark.
(opposite page) The eight-lane Chungshan Road passes right in front of Hsiaokang Airport. The broad, straight avenues are one of the first things to make an impression on visitors.
p.12
Expansive residential spaces are one of the city's features that Kaohsiungites deem worthy of promoting to outsiders. (photo by Diago Chiu)
p.13
Kaohsiung, which has often been called a "cultural desert," has added a number of cultural facilities in recent years. The National Science and Technology Museum in Kaohsiung is said to be Asia's largest. (photo by Pao chung-hui)
p.14
Seventy percent of Taiwan's chemical industry is centered in Kaohsiung. Industrial emissions are the main source of Kaohsiung's air pollution.
p.15
A strange sight common in Kaohsiung is that of people buying water from curbside trucks. One-third of all drinking water consumed in the city is sold in this manner.
p.17
The port has provided Kaohsiung with many business opportunities, and made it an "industrial city."
p.19
With the establishment of facilities such as new universities and a multi-functional commercial park, Kaohsiung hopes to attract an inflow of white-collar workers.
p.20
Residents' Image of Taipei City and Satisfaction with Life There
Survey design and analysis: National Institute of Technology at Kaohsiung
Survey conducted by Sinorama Magazine
Number of people responding: 304 (152 in Taipei City and 152 in Taipei County)
Explanation:
Very satisfied (+2)
Satisfied (+1)
Accepting ( 0)
Unsatisfied (-1)
Very unsatisfied (-2)
1.Satisfaction about meeting physical needs
Price of consumer goods -0.36
Housing conditions -0.404
Transportation convenience -0.1
Culture and leisure +0
2.Satisfaction about security
Transportation safety -0.668
Public safety -0.644
Career opportunities +0.048
3.Love for city
Satisfied with how friendly people are -0.564
Proud to live in Taipei +0.224
4.Meeting individual needs
How long have you lived in Taipei?
Less than a year 0.8%
Three years 1.7%
Five years 2.5%
More than 10 years 95%
Is Taipei a place where you can achieve your ideals?
Yes 67.2%
No 32.8%
Have you considered moving somewhere else?
Yes 12.8%
No 87.2%
If you have considered moving, where do you think is the best place to live in Taiwan?
Taichung 12.4%
Tainan 1.6%
Kaohsiung 2%
Others 22%
Didn't answer 62%
What is the primary consideration for where you live? (in order)
Quality of life
Transportation convenience
Children's education
Career opportunities
Convenient shopping
Relatives and friends
(photo by Pu Hua-chih, graphics by Liao Tzu-wen)
p.22
"Knowing Kaohsiung" Survey of Kaohsiung Residents
Survey design and analysis: Kaohsiung City Development Fund
Survey conducted by National Sun Yat-sen University's Institute of Public Affairs Management
Total number of respondents: 1486
Residential factors
1.Which special characteristics and long-range development goals of Kaohsiung are most worth promoting?
Environmental conditions:
Port 45.23%
Sea 28.19%
Mountains 26.98%
Weather 21.70%
Rivers 12.17%
Others 2.33%
Residential factors:
Spaciousness 37.53%
Ease of transportation 23.53%
Green space 22.31%
Housing quality 19.47%
Others 4.26%
Life and culture:
Development outlook 33.98%
Local customs 23.63%
Cheap and plentiful goods 22.72%
Cultural facilities 21.81%
New educational institutions 17.65%
Trade and economic development:
Multi-functional commercial park 43.21%
Transshipment center 33.78%
International center for industry and commerce 27.28%
Leisure and entertainment:
Tourist attractions 51.83%
Artistic and cultural activities 28.60%
Department stores and boutiques 23.02%
Hotel and restaurant industry 14.81%
2.Satisfaction with Kaohsiung
Living space:
Satisfied 60.34%
Unsatisfied 39.66%
Natural environment:
Satisfied 50.51%
Unsatisfied 49.49%
Cultural and educational levels:
Satisfied 37.12%
Unsatisfied 62.88%
Cost of living:
Satisfied 66.13%
Unsatisfied 33.87%
Civility:
Satisfied 63.18%
Unsatisfied 36.82%
Space for development:
Satisfied 68.15%
Unsatisfied 31.85%
3.Are you proud to live in Kaohsiung?
Yes 90%
No 10%
(photo by Pu Hua-chih, graphics by Liao Tzu-wen)
Expansive residential spaces are one of the city's features that Kaohsiungites deem worthy of promoting to outsiders. （photo by Diago Chiu）
Kaohsiung, which has often been called a "cultural desert," has added a number of cultural facilities in recent years. The National Science and Technology Museum in Kaohsiung is said to be Asia's largest. （photo by P ao chung-hui）
Seventy percent of Taiwan's chemical industry is centered in Kaohsiung. Industrial emissions are the main source of Kaohsiung's air pollution.
A strange sight common in Kaohsiung is that of people buying water from curbside trucks. One-third of all drinking water consumed in the city is sold in this manner.
The port has provided Kaohsiung with many business opportunities, and made it an "industrial city.".
With the establishment of facilities such as new universities and a mult i-functional commercial park, Kaohsiung hopes to attract an inflow of white-collar workers.
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