Taiwan is said to have six metropolises: the special municipalities of Taipei, as well as Kaohsiung, Tainan and Taichung, formerly merged with their respective counties; and two other special municipalities upgraded from the populous Taoyuan and Taipei counties. Together, these special municipalities form what are called the “six metropolises.”
Former provincial cities such as Chiayi, Hsinchu, Keelung and the county-controlled Changhua are all appended with the name “city.”
Perhaps for this reason, some might feel that it would be reasonable to also refer to these as metropolises. Perhaps this is because of other cases where places are called metropolises, such as with Tokyo.
The positive connotation associated with living in a metropolis might lead some locals to wish for their city to be upgraded to a special municipality, but there is no justification for doing so.
No matter what you call them, cities have always been densely populated. Because of this, a public transport system is more essential for cities than it is for rural areas.
All cities in Taiwan are densely populated regardless of their title, but public rapid transportation systems are not universally established.
Thanks to a certain degree of economic development, car and motorcycle ownership copes with this and is also a source of great relief. People with more money buy cars, those with less money buy motorcycles. In the end, most have some kind of personal transportation.
As a result, Taiwan lacks a fully developed urban framework, which is tantamount to the nation’s lack of social structure. Having to rely on personal transportation to navigate the city alienates people from their progressive community.
It is just like moving from a bungalow to a high-rise building, only to find that the building does not have elevators for common use — something that might be thought to be essential in such a building.
It is as if the residents are expected to install their own personal elevators, or to hoist themselves up outside the building.
In this scenario, the personal elevators would be the cars, while the motorcycles are family winch mechanisms.
Once people get used to taking care of themselves this way, it becomes part of the culture.
For example, in Taipei, despite the dense network of buses and a gradually developing MRT system, the number of people who use cars and motorcycles for personal transportation, as opposed to for business, has not declined.
How much more so is this the case for other cities that have yet to develop comprehensive bus and MRT systems?
In European nations such as Germany, many small and medium-sized cities with populations of about 100,000 are connected by subways and convenient bus services, as well as trams.
Then there is Vienna, the Austrian capital, which has subways complementing ground-level tram, trolleybus and bus systems, all of which are interconnected.
It is not like once the financial circumstances allow, everyone would buy their own cars or motorcycles and go their own way.
During rush hours, the crossroads in Taipei are packed with fleets of motorcycles, turning the roads into parking lots. It claims itself to be a world-class city, but this is perhaps to justify its public transportation system.
Starting from the six metropolises, their mayors should find a suitable solution for rapid and convenient public transport, while in the meantime their residents should have awareness of public issues.
Especially the cities that already have an MRT system or are planning to develop one they should try to break their residents’ bad transport habits formed of self-reliance.
If not for businesses, then for the traffic, the metropolises should help their residents change the habit of self-reliance and fix the alienated structure of urban society.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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