The media recently turned to the controversy surrounding Kaohsiung's attempt to find a location for a popular music center. The conflict is typical of those that have afflicted the city's development over the years, but it also reveals a deeper problem that residents who are concerned with the city's long-term development should note.
It is difficult for the average resident to imagine the difficulty of administering Kaohsiung. The crux of the problem is land ownership, which affects urban development. Nearly 60 percent of the urban area is controlled by the central government, which presents a unique challenge for urban development.
All this land was appropriated and then redistributed by the central government under its policy of industrialization. It was transferred to state-run enterprises and business agencies under the Ministry of Economic Affairs at low prices and with low taxes to lay the foundations for the nation's economic development. This land includes Kaohsiung Harbor, large industrial parks, state-run enterprises in the city center and large military installations.
The central government directly controls what is built on this land and how it is used. The local government has very little say in the matter. Long-standing criticism that Kaohsiung's lack of sovereignty and overdependence on the central government has made it a "colony" of the politicians in Taipei, or that Kaohsiung is an economic outpost for the central government because it lacks an autonomous economic policy, are not unfounded.
More often that not, the land the central government takes for its business agencies and state enterprises was not given voluntarily by the Kaohsiung City Government.
For example, in 1947, despite resistance from the Kaohsiung City Council, operation of the Kaohsiung Harbor was entrusted to the central government under the pretext that the local government was incapable of managing international shipping operations. The harbor thus became an agency under the central government to support its economic and trade policies. It was a virtually autonomous commercial port, whose development was completely separate from that of the city.
It is hard to determine what positive contributions the harbor has made to Kaohsiung. Its supporters might say it brought employment opportunities -- dock workers, customs officials and shipping companies. But with Taipei actually serving as the hub for the majority of the nation's international shipping, it is debatable whether Kaohsiung Harbor has helped develop the southern city's industries or create tax revenues.
Bottom line is that Kaohsiung did not benefit greatly from the plan, and instead had to bear the negative consequences of being a shipping, transshipment and industrial city.
With the rise in international competition, Kaohsiung Harbor's fortunes have also dwindled. As global container shipping expanded with the explosion in international trade, efforts to make Kaohsiung Harbor more efficient and competitive required expansion of its shipping container areas. However, that did not stop Kaohsiung Harbor from its downward slide in global ranking. Its loss of competitiveness in bulk shipping prompted the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau to draw up a plan 10 years ago to transform it into a recreation and tourism area. Once again, this plan was clearly aimed at Kaohsiung Harbor -- not Kaohsiung City.
It would seem that transforming part of the harbor space for recreational and tourism use would be consistent with long-term plans for the city's development. However, the Kaohsiung government's lack of authority over the harbor and harbor authorities refusal to work with the city or cooperate with urban development plans have hampered plans to transform Kaohsiung into a maritime city. Plans to beautify it as a coastal city have encountered stiff resistance at every turn.
Every excuse was used to block requests for the use of wharves 16 and 17 as the site for a pop music center. Harbor workers staged a protest, saying it would affect their livelihood. But the harbor bureau had already passed plans to change the use of the wharves, and so it is only a matter of time before workers have to be transfer to other wharves.
From the perspective of city residents, we have reason to suspect that central government agencies like the harbor bureau and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications have taken a "colonialist" attitude toward the harbor.
Their lack of concern for the needs of Kaohsiung's overall urban development is the main reason behind the conflict over selecting a location for the music center.
The controversy over where to build the center is just the tip of the iceberg. This same kind of attitude is the reason why large tracts of land allotted for industrial park development remain idle. National organizations and enterprises under the central government, such as Taiwan Sugar Corp, the military and CPC Corp, Taiwan, currently occupy these massive land areas.
These businesses have turned their backs on the public, forgetting the pollution and damage they have brought upon Kaohsiung in the past. Seeing these properties as valuable assets, they hold on to these lands and wait for market prices to rise. Their actions have driven up costs and hindered Kaohsiung's urban development.
Kaohsiung residents concerned with the city's sustained development should not tolerate this.
As partners sharing this same living space, these agencies should give up their position as entities of the central government and become aware of the historical transformation and transitions taking place. They should cooperate with local residents and the city government toward a common future.
As one of the flagship projects to transform Kaohsiung into a 21st century city, the controversy over putting the music center on wharves 16 and 17 needs to be debated based on this principle.
Tseng Tse-fong is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Urban Development and Architecture at National University of Kaohsiung.
Translated by Marc Langer
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