Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) left on an eight-day trip to the US on Saturday to learn about waterfront urban development and municipal administration.
City government officials said that Hau would visit Boston and New York to study those cities’ urban rejuvenation projects, urban beach management, crime-fighting initiatives and welfare programs.
Hau is leading a delegation of city officials and councilors, including Deputy Secretary-General Chen Yung-jen (陳永仁), Department of Urban Development Commissioner Ting Yu-chun (丁育群) and Emile Sheng (盛治仁), head of the city’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission.
An itinerary released by the city government shows that the delegation will visit Boston first, where they will meet Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
Mostafavi is also a member of a panel that is screening designs in an international contest for Taipei’s new arts center construction project.
The delegation will also visit Boston’s noted “Big Dig” tunnel construction project as well as its waterfront development project and an old market reconstruction project.
On Wednesday, the group is scheduled to travel to New York City.
Hau will meet with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to discuss environmental protection issues and invite the city to take part in the 2010 Taipei International Flower Exhibition.
He will also invite Bloomberg and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani to attend the opening ceremony of the 21st Deaflympics in Taipei next year.
During the three-day stay in New York, the delegation will visit the city’s 311 Citizen Service Center, urban beach and the Harlem urban renewal area as well as several of its waterfront parks, including Battery Park, the Hudson River Park and the Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Hau and his colleagues are scheduled to return to Taipei on Sept. 2.
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