The lives of residents in the special municipalities of New Taipei City (新北市, the proposed English name of the upgraded Taipei County), Greater Taichung, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung will be slightly different now that the mergers were implemented on Saturday.
For one, former rural townships are now regarded as districts, while villages are now boroughs, though the names of roads and streets, house numbers and zip codes will remain unchanged.
Residents of the newly established cities will have to attach stickers of new districts or villages — provided by local governments — onto their house number plates.
ID cards, household certificates and certificates for the handicapped will remain unchanged in the new special municipalities.
As for their mailing address, residents will now have to write “XX City, XX District,” as well as the zip code.
However, some residents have already said they do not want to attach the district sticker to their house number plates, claiming it makes no difference.
Lee Ging-ping (李金平), an employee at a courier company, said that while it did not matter whether people attached the sticker or not, it was important that they write the district correctly, as delivery services would not be able to locate an address simply with the name of a city and the road or street.
Another change following implementation of the special municipalities is that national senior high schools and hospitals will now be changed to city senior high schools and hospitals.
Social associations and professional associations (such as “Taichung XX Association” and “Taichung County XX Association”) will have to communicate with each other to avoid using the same title. In cases where associations insist on using the same title or refuse to yield theirs, a draw will be conducted to decide the matter.
Meanwhile, industrial and business associations from former cities and counties in the five special municipalities will be requested to have merged by Dec. 25, 2013.
Although the mergers are causing some slight inconveniences, residents of a former county will enjoy better welfare services.
For example, residents of the former Kaohsiung City will now be entitled to additional welfare dispensations, such as a NT$6,000 (US$200) subsidy for the birth of a child, free artificial teeth and free health exams for the elderly.
The mergers will also have an impact on real-estate prices, with rises already observed in former townships, including Greater Taichung’s Wujih (烏日), Shalu (沙鹿), Lungjing (龍井) and Tanzih (潭子) districts.
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