Regardless of how biased those criticizing Taipei’s public housing planning are or how much they look down on such planning, if the exploited working class did not maintain a functioning city, the city’s prosperity and housing prices would never hold up.
Given the lack of comprehensive complementary measures, would any calls for justice, claims to occupy the moral high ground and strong support for initiating large-scale construction of social housing in Taipei be able to bring about the residential justice that everyone is dreaming about? Probably not.
Perhaps a look at Hong Kong can provide some perspective. In Taiwan, which has suffered from a slowing economy and the commoditization of residential housing over the past two decades, Hong Kong’s well-known and frequently praised public housing system has been mistakenly looked at as a panacea for residential justice. Many delegations have visited Hong Kong to learn from their experiences, but the reality is that this is simply a necessary measure undertaken to house the workers that are essential to maintaining a functioning society.
As a result of its particular historical and geographical conditions, Hong Kong has transformed itself into a black hole, stopping at nothing to attract financial and real-estate investment, and then matching that with the construction of impressive and novel public housing that in fact functions as bird cages for the workers that are necessary to maintain a functional society. This is how Hong Kong’s development has been perpetuated.
As to the costs of the resulting externalities, they have been left to the Chinese countryside with its ample supply of workers and rich land resources. Is this really something that Taiwan should learn from?
Those who are in favor of quick large-scale construction of social housing might scoff at this view and say that based on the current level of social development, northern Taiwan is in desperate need of residential areas and that a large amount of social housing is needed to bring about residential justice.
They might ask why Taiwan is even mentioned together with Hong Kong and say that the goal with social housing in Taiwan is completely different from the situation in Hong Kong, where social housing has been used to house workers that are required to maintain a functioning society.
The goal might differ, but the result would be the same. Well-intended policies would not be beneficial in the end.
The crux of the problem is the need for complementary measures, such as amending the land tax to reduce the hoarding of land for speculative purposes due to low holding costs, policy tools to create balanced industrial, population and public facility development across northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan, and a gradual suppression of speculation in tandem with the promotion of balanced development in order to reduce the severe commoditization of residential housing.
Without such measures, large-scale construction of social housing would only encourage workers and educated people to continue to congregate in Taipei. This would directly lead to deteriorating regional imbalances and indirectly result in worsening hoarding of land, which is scarce in northern Taiwan. The final result would be the same as in Hong Kong — continued construction of social housing at increasingly higher prices.
The only difference would be the resulting externalities and the quickly shrinking population that would have to be shouldered by central and southern Taiwan. Whose residential rights are protected by such a result? Whose residential justice?
Lu Chifeng is a director of the Society of Railway and National Planning.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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