* Contributor in abstentia

The PRCUD Kaohsiung Report is a significant document for a number of reasons. First, it is full of insights on the development opportunities and challenges facing Kaohsiung today and tomorrow. Second, it is the outcome of a remarkable collaborative process involving dozens of urban development professionals from throughout the Pacific region. Third, it marks the successful transition of the PRCUD annual event from a conference to a round table format. But most importantly, the PRCUD Kaohsiung Report is significant because of the dialogue that it encapsulates. For the better part of three days, a remarkably diverse and accomplished group of individuals held forth on a wide range of issues pertaining to Kaohsiung’s future development prospects. That dialogue was mutually enriching and informative, and this Report is a tangible representation of that fact.

In reading the Report one is struck by how thoroughly Kaohsiung understands itself (no surprise, of course). There is a clarity and confidence to the presentations and formal remarks that rings true throughout. What, then, might be added from the perspectives of outsiders? Again, the answer is found in the dialogue itself. Members of the Pacific Rim Council of Urban Development who ventured to Kaohsiung to engage in this dialogue represent a superb collection of private sector developers and consultants, government officials, and academics from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, Korea, Malaysia and the United States. These are professionals who have gained a deep understanding of urban development through their diverse and plentiful experiences at home and abroad. By engaging this group in focussed and sustained dialogue, their counterparts in Kaohsiung had an opportunity to give voice to their insights in ways that they might not otherwise have done.

The defining feature of Kaohsiung is its harbor, which is home to the third largest container port in the world. An extension of this identity is the industrial base that has been a traditional mainstay of economic activity in the area. The challenge before Kaohsiung is how to build on the strengths inherent in this traditional identity while moving on to new arenas. The opportunities inherent in this challenge are perhaps best exemplified by the case of the China Steel Corporation, which has reconstituted itself in a remarkably short time from a state-owned behemoth into a fascinating and successful example of a forward looking, innovative, environmentally conscious, socially aware, technologically efficient and financially profitable private enterprise. It is a splendid example of how to build on traditional strengths in creative ways, and owes much to the leadership of its dynamic Chairman, Chung-Yu Wang, who participated actively in the Roundtable discussions and who personally hosted a fascinating tour of the China Steel Corporation facilities. The lessons from that experience echo throughout this Report.

Another defining aspect of Kaohsiung’s situation is its geographic location and context. As in many cities throughout the region and beyond, Kaohsiung’s leadership articulates its ambitions for transforming Kaohsiung into a "global city". This is useful to a degree, but the real key is finding one’s proper role or niche within the evolving global system. In the case of Kaohsiung, that role is best defined by its regional context. Interestingly, that regional context and Taiwan’s opportunities within it are thoughtfully described by the central government’s own strategy to position Taiwan as an Asia Pacific Regional Operations Center (APROC). Tellingly, APROC did not appear to figure significantly into Kaohsiung’s own view of itself as articulated during the three days of discussions.

One can envision a Kaohsiung of the future that builds on the APROC concept and that recognizes the increasingly distributed nature of manufacturing processes within the region. Increasingly, we see industrial production coordinated across national boundaries, with each country specializing in specific components or processes. Viewed from this perspective, Kaohsiung is not the "poor cousin of Taipei", but is instead a leading player in a complex, regionally based set of manufacturing and industrial processes. One can envision components being shipped to Kaohsiung from throughout the region for high value-added processing in Kaohsiung prior to distribution worldwide. This scenario builds on Kaohsiung’s strengths: its port, its industrial base, its relatively well educated and highly paid (from a regional perspective) work force.

This APROC strategy points to the value of making the region Kaohsiung’s proper frame of reference. In the Roundtable discussions we heard much of Kaohsiung’s role relative to that of Taipei, but we heard very little in these presentations about Kaohsiung’s role relative to the Philippines, mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, Japan or other neighbors. This approach also underlines the fundamental importance of Taiwan’s relationship with mainland China. In some ways, mainland China holds the key to Kaohsiung’s ability to assume the role of the highest value-added production node within a region-wide production complex. Any purported region-wide system that does not integrate industrial output from mainland China within it will inevitably fall short. At the same time, mainland China has much to gain from the dynamism, efficiency and leadership that Kaohsiung can offer such a system.

Ironically, it appears that integration of strategic initiatives within Taiwan is a pre-requisite for developing an integrated regional approach that includes Taiwan. The Kaohsiung City government must coordinate with the central government, with the Port of Kaohsiung, and with leading voices in Taipei to ensure that each is working in tandem towards a consistent objective. A first step is already underway with the increasing coordination between the Port of Kaohsiung, the City of Kaohsiung, and the County of Kaohsiung. As Kaohsiung continues to articulate its envisioned role within a general APROC strategy we may expect that the rest of Taiwan will become increasingly aware of the central importance of Kaohsiung to the APROC strategy as a whole, and thus to the economic welfare of the entire island.

These and other issues are addressed in the Roundtable dialogue that is summarized in this Report. The production of the PRCUD Kaohsiung Report itself exemplifies the transnational production process described in the paragraphs above and exemplifies, too, how specialized skills can be combined at various stages through a coordinated effort. The Report’s Managing Editor, Jeanette Barbieri, flew in from Beijing to assist in the process. Ms. Barbieri is a former Administrative Assistant to PRCUD and is currently pursuing her doctorate in political science at the University of Southern California, where she specializes in Chinese politics. Above all, it is to Jeanette Barbieri’s impressive linguistic, managerial, analytical and diplomatic skills that the Report’s cogency and completeness can be attributed. She worked closely with the six PRCUD session chairs and each of the presenters to ensure that all of the presentation and discussion materials are well integrated into the report.

Further editing and processing took place in Los Angeles at the PRCUD Secretariat with skillful guidance from the Copy Editor, Ms. Alicia Kitsuse, a graduate student of urban planning at the University of Southern California. PRCUD Administrative Assistant Emel Yucekus, a doctoral student in urban planning at USC, managed transactions to ensure that the right version of the document was in the right hands at all times. After the draft Report was disseminated to the various contributors via email and fax for final revisions and review, the completed Report was then sent electronically to Kaohsiung and to Singapore, for final production by the two publishers, the Kaohsiung Metropolitan Development Foundation, care of Professor Ming-Shen Wang at the National Sun Yatsen University, and PRCUD itself, care of PRCUD President Lan-Yuan Lim, who is Head of the School for Building and Estate Management at the National University of Singapore. Thus, it is clear that we practice what we preach in this Report!

Finally, this note would be woefully incomplete if it did not acknowledge the tremendous personal generosity, warmth, and organizational aplomb provided by our hosts. Mayor Dun-Yih Wu set the tone for the PRCUD Annual Forum with his personable hospitality, confident intellect, and engaging sense of humor; and this tone was reflected consistently throughout our visit by Victor Liu, Ming-Shen Wang, John Lee, Diane Tseng and numerous others on the Organizing Committee. From top-to-bottom, and from left-to-right, the entire Kaohsiung City Government and allied civic and private institutions opened their doors to us and welcomed us in dialogue. It was truly an honor for each of us to participate, and the PRCUD Kaohsiung Report is symbolic of the fruits of that dialogue. PRCUD intends to adapt this Round Table format to its future annual meetings, beginning in Los Angeles next year and Tokyo in the year 2000. Let it not be forgotten that it was Kaohsiung who showed us the way!

Eric J. Heikkila, Executive Editor

and PRCUD Executive Secretary

December 1998

Ho Tong-Pong, Deputy Secretary-General of Kaohsiung City Government, focuses on Kaohsiung’s development and the limitations it must confront in anticipation of the momentous changes underway during the port’s administrative transfer from central to local governmental jurisdiction. Tracing Kaohsiung’s historical development from the 16th century, when a large influx of immigrants entered Taiwan from the mainland, Ho points out that it was not until the Japanese colonial occupation in the early years of this century that the harbor began to be developed. With the foundation for Kaohsiung’s development already laid, the Republican government integrated existing economic and military structures to transform Kaohsiung from a military harbor into a sea transportation center between southeast and northeast Asia. During these years, the city’s population grew from ten thousand in 1900 to 1.5 million today.

Though Kaohsiung’s early development was military-related, its heavy industries were gradually bent to serving the needs of the population at large in a peacetime economy. Manufacturing constituted the emphasis of Kaohsiung’s development, mostly in electronics, metals, and ocean, air, and land transportation machinery. The installation of Kaohsiung’s export processing zone in the 1960s spurred the steady growth of the city until the 1980s. Currently service industries are on the rise, which, together with commercial industries, now dominate Kaohsiung’s enterprises.

The legacy of environmental problems stemming from Kaohsiung’s early industrialization has caused local residents to become increasingly concerned about improving air and water quality in the city and its environs. Environmental issues, however, are not solely responsible for mobilizing citizen participation in urban development. In recent years, Kaohsiung’s citizens have taken a greater role in advancing social justice and equality. Their actions have helped to make Kaohsiung a more attractive place to work and live and have allowed the city to better capitalize on its natural advantages of climate and location, as well as its structural advantages of uncongested roads, reasonably priced land, and a solid manufacturing base.

Ho is optimistic about the prospects for Kaohsiung’s continued development. The downturn in industrial profits has turned Kaohsiung away from industry toward an investment orientation. Kaohsiung’s comparatively low, 3.5 percent unemployment rate suggests this transition is proceeding smoothly, though there are worrisome signs on the horizon, such as the decrease in monthly payroll expenditures.

Ho applauds several recent developments in Kaohsiung. The most significant of these is the integration of port and city. To complement this project, there are plans to devote a section of the harbor to recreational and commercial use. A new city center is being planned, as is a multi-function economic and trade area. In addition, new universities have been planned and built, as have parks and museums.

Despite this substantive progress, however, several problems remain. Unfortunately, the above-mentioned gains have done nothing to increase the internationalization of Kaohsiung. The social and cultural awareness of the local population does not extend to the international realm. Internationally recognized signs and symbols are lacking in Kaohsiung. The lack of international outreach, however, is not as harmful to the city as its insufficient interaction with its nearer neighbors. Disputes between city and county impede progress in Kaohsiung’s urban development. Kaohsiung is in increasing need of better and more cooperation at both the local and national levels.

In many ways, the transfer of the port to the city’s administrative control provides an opportunity for Kaohsiung to reach out to regions beyond its limits. Reintegration of the city and the port will more closely connect Kaohsiung with the ocean and will truly transform Kaohsiung into a gateway city. It is hoped that growing interdependence between Kaohsiung and its neighbors will raise residents’ environmental consciousness and foster more cooperation within the city.

Ho concludes by calling for a balance in Kaohsiung’s development efforts. He argues that Kaohsiung was not served by its previous neglect of culture and will not now be served by abandoning science and technology. Theory must not lose sight of practice. Culture and science must nourish one another. New partnerships must be forged between academics and industry so that manufacturing can continue to innovate and grow with Kaohsiung.

Chi-Tze Chen, Director General of the Public Works Department of Kaohsiung City Government, reminds us that when Taiwan’s first railway was constructed in 1901, the city only had 1,000 inhabitants. Since then, the city’s boundaries have expanded with the population, which in turn has facilitated more contact between Kaohsiung and neighboring countries. In Chen’s view, the growth of the city can be explained by the city’s consciousness of itself as a member of the region beyond its waters.

This awareness has strengthened Kaohsiung’s development in several significant respects. Not least of these is Kaohsiung’s consistent ability to properly respond to world economic change. As a port city, Kaohsiung has also understood the necessity of continually strengthening its infrastructure to better connect the harbor with the interior through a network of roads and railways. International ecological concerns have made an impact in Kaohsiung’s development as well, as manifest in the city’s success in encouraging industrial development while simultaneously protecting the environment. Chen hopes to see further gains in environmental standards in the near future, particularly in the areas of water resources, garbage disposal, and air quality.

Shen Li-Fu, President of I-Shou University, underscores Ho’s point about the need for a better balance in building Kaohsiung’s future. He believes education is the key to meeting this challenge. Fu dates Kaohsiung’s expansion into a metropolis to the 1960s, when shipbuilding, petrochemical, and steel industries arose and export-processing zones were established. These developments established Kaohsiung as an industrial center and made the city at once a more modernized and a more polluted place to live.

Cultural institutions did not evolve in Kaohsiung as quickly as industry, but these and other improvements in quality of life have nonetheless taken hold in Kaohsiung over the past two decades. Fu reports the impressions of a returning expatriate who noted marked cultural advances in the city. The expatriate observed that the city was much cleaner, was easier to reach from afar, and offered visitors more choices of places to stay. Its buildings, though regrettably tall, enriched the built environment and the lives of residents. New museums, schools, and department stores had sprung up.

Some of the changes that had occurred prior to the expatriate’s return were less immediately apparent. Many of these less obvious changes will pose challenges for Kaohsiung in the 21^st century. Demographic trends have resulted in an urban population with a low birth rate and an increasingly large elderly segment. Like Japan, Kaohsiung must find a means of meeting the needs of the elderly while the adult working population shrinks. Democratization has created opportunities for more active citizenship, but city government has made very little progress in enfranchising the people.

For Fu, successfully meeting these challenges will go a long way toward achieving the city’s primary goal of building an unpolluted and modern city that nurtures its inhabitants both spiritually and materially. Above all, devoted leadership will be required to guide changes in the urban landscape toward this end. Additionally, a stronger emphasis on education will be needed to offer residents a better chance to develop creativity and a personally meaningful set of ethics.

Still, even non-material improvements are dependent on physical structures for their success. More schools must be built to improve the social fabric and other structures created to allow residents to better enjoy their leisure time in the city. These will include recreation areas, residential areas, and even a convention center. Fu contends that these changes will leave Kaohsiung’s citizens with more of a stake in the future of their community.

Because most of the PRCUD members had not been to Kaohsiung, most of the questions and subsequent discussion focused on information gathering and clarification of issues regarding Kaohsiung. For example, there was a need for data about the population of specified land areas and the relationships between Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County. Some members wanted to obtain copies of the Kaohsiung master plan in order to see the actual spatial dimensions of the city’s plans and land use patterns, both existing and planned. The high population density in the city and its comparative lack of sprawl and suburbanization raised discussion as to causes, which related to weak public transport in the past as well as other factors. The extreme discontinuity between Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung port elicited much interest and discussion. The separate administration of the two has had a profound effect, much of it negative, on administration and development of Kaohsiung City. Fortunately, the port will come under direct administration by Kaohsiung City in 1999. This change is related to the downsizing of the Taiwan provincial government.

Much interest also centered on how Kaohsiung port and its surrounding land is used, or might be used, in the future. Kaohsiung’s role within the Asia Pacific Regional Organization Center (APROC) as the Asia Pacific shipping center for Taiwan will be a key land use determinant. The current heavy industrial base and shipping facilities in the port will need to be transformed and modernized. How this will be accomplished is a topic for ongoing discussion. One person wondered if Kaohsiung could copy the model of cities in Japan, Singapore, or Hong Kong in using land reclamation as a way to expand the shoreline outward and provide new land for future urban and industrial uses. Recreational facilities that capitalize on Kaohsiung’s coastal geography and climate should be part of that plan.

The issue of mass rapid transport also was raised. Currently stalled because of political and financial problems, the rapid transit system is viewed by some as necessary in the long run because of anticipated suburban growth in future decades. Others question the need given Kaohsiung’s modest population size and low anticipated growth rates, as well as the cost of construction and the likelihood that the project would operate at a deficit.

The rivalry between Kaohsiung and Taipei was raised by a number of people, with virtual unanimity that Kaohsiung needs to develop its own niche and not feel inferior to Taipei, as the two cities are quite different in their character and roles.

The importance of Kaohsiung is often under-appreciated, both inside and outside of Taiwan. Numerous factors speak to this importance. Kaohsiung handles about 70 percent of Taiwan’s export/import and leads Taiwan in the production of steel, cement, petrochemicals, and shipbuilding. Kaohsiung is also the location of several key government enterprises (some of which are in the process of privatization) including China Steel, China Petroleum, and China Shipbuilding, and is home to three of Taiwan’s export processing zones, a form of industrial development Kaohsiung helped pioneer in the 1960s and which has subsequently been copied all over the world. Moreover, Kaohsiung is the third largest container port in the world and Taiwan’s largest port. Over the last four decades, Kaohsiung generated much of the wealth that provided the capital to finance Taiwan’s move into electronics and the IT industry, which are now carrying Taiwan into the next century. Hence, Kaohsiung has much to be proud of in the key role it has played in Taiwan’s modern history.

Yet, Kaohsiung has a long-standing negative image and inferiority complex that is only beginning to change. There are a number of reasons for this. Foremost is the

legacy of Taiwan’s history. Although Kaohsiung has been in existence as a settlement since the late 1600s, it was the Japanese who developed the port, oversaw the initial urbanization of the city, and named the city Kaohsiung during their colonial rule (1895-1945). After the Republic of China recovered Taiwan in 1945, the central government designated Kaohsiung as the Republic’s principal industrial center, capitalizing on its locational advantages and port for importation of bulky raw materials such as coal, iron ore, and petroleum from the Middle East and Australia.

Given Taiwan’s authoritarian political system between 1949-1985, Kaohsiung had little choice in its development path. In the 1970s, Kaohsiung’s came under direct administration by the central government, which appointed the city’s mayor. Concerns about pollution and the other effects of heavy industry focus fell on deaf ears (or were never raised) because of the overriding national policy of "Recovery of the Mainland" and Kaohsiung’s key role in helping achieve that goal.

As a consequence of these circumstances, Kaohsiung now confronts a number of problems, including a work force that is 70 to 80 percent blue-collar; a relative shortage of white collar workers; a perceived lack of culture, sophistication, cosmopolitanism; low educational attainment, especially among higher sector workers; serious air and water pollution; and a shortage of green space. Despite the fact that there has been considerable improvement in many of these areas during the past decade, and especially since Mayor Wu took office, Kaohsiung is still felt to compare unfavorably with Taipei. Unfortunately, perceptions and reputation tend to linger long after reality has changed. This is abundantly clear in the case of Kaohsiung.

Kaohsiung now is on the verge of a new era. Where does it go from here? Should Kaohsiung attempt to become another Taipei? The answer is no. Kaohsiung needs to find its own niche, to capitalize on its strengths and comparative advantage and not focus on how it compares with Taipei. Instead, Kaohsiung should compare itself with where it stood 10, 20, and 30 years ago and with where it hopes to be in the future. Kaohsiung has much to be proud of, though this does not suggest there are no problems to overcome.

Whatever plans are developed for Kaohsiung’s future, it is important that those plans adopt a humanistic perspective. Cities are for people and the plan for Kaohsiung must make the city as attractive and enjoyable to live in as possible. This is important not only for the immediate benefit of those living in Kaohsiung, but also in order to retain current residents and to attract new residents, especially those who have the option of residing anywhere. Kaohsiung authorities need to look at the factors that make for a truly livable city, including well-paying jobs commensurate with educational levels; convenient and affordable public transit; good schools; opportunities for recreation and amusement; and clean air and water, among others. Kaohsiung has strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas, and needs to preserve its best practices and improve the worst. Much progress has already been made, but this progress may not be as well known outside the city as it could be. Hence, Kaohsiung needs to do a better job of promoting itself.

Interaction between citizens and their city governments stemming from mutual ambitions to improve the quality of day-to-day life is an issue that is attracting more and more serious study. This second round table session touched on some of the issues raised by the need to facilitate such interactions and to enhance the ability of both individuals and municipal administrations to obtain the best possible results from them.

Leaders and governments are seeking to do more with less as populations grow and universal education increases personal expectations. For leaders to succeed in such endeavors they need the intelligent support of their constituents. They need to engage their constituents in the urban design process.

The increase in personal expectations appears to be an important factor behind Kaohsiung’s current efforts to improve its general quality of life and its international image. Aside from a sound economic base that provides the essentials such as food, shelter, and a primary education, people are increasingly seeking benefits that flow from an improved environment that promotes good health and happiness.

Many people have formed the perception that there is the need for Kaohsiung to be competitive in all areas. This has been induced by the international media and by nationalistic fervor that is driving people and organizations to find better, smarter ways of achieving their goals and objectives, often at the expense of others. Individual competitiveness is frequently in conflict with the need for citizens to work together to achieve more substantial benefits for the community as a whole. The energy and drive of forceful individuals from within the Kaohsiung community need to be harnessed and redirected toward a shared vision, as has been done in other cities and regions to their proven benefit.

Mayor Wu has presented a white paper on his government’s vision for the future of Kaohsiung. If Kaohsiung’s citizens shared the vision, it could be the blueprint for the city’s transformation from a port and industrial center into an attractive, international destination. Such a process would involve decision-making at multiple levels of society. Encouraging the people of Kaohsiung to work together, and educating them in planning the decision-making process, obtaining reliable information, making the best decisions in appropriate time frames, and implementing those decisions will benefit them, the city, and the nation as a whole.

Wang Ming-Shen, Professor in the Institute of Public Affairs Management at National Sun Yat-Sen University, divides the actors in local development into three groups: the public, the private, and social sectors. It is this third group that is most central to the growth of civil society. For Wang, planning a well-developed city requires shifting the focus back to this group to cultivate a civic sense of identity. This can be accomplished in Kaohsiung through a number of practical means, such as the encouragement of community-based organizations, government-sponsorship of neighborhood and district events, and promotion of a set of city symbols and images. Building on Kaohsiung’s development will hinge on its aim to provide its residents with a greater sense of pride in and responsibility to their community.

Kaohsiung is unique as a Taiwanese metropolis in that a large segment of its population has migrated from the countryside. Wang argues that this large-scale migration, when combined with a strong rural native place affinity and a trend away from multi-generational to single-generational family dwellings, has fostered a sense of distrust among new neighbors. This trend rose alongside the city’s developing openness to international influences. In other words, in the relatively new city of Kaohsiung, urbanization has often given rise to a sense of alienation even in a climate of increasing international exposure. Newcomers have reacted to their unfamiliar surroundings and to insecurities engendered by the rapid pace of social transformation by turning inward, toward family and away from the community, feeling that strangers are enemies. This sentiment dims Kaohsiung’s prospects for internationalization.

Wang looks to a number of elements in both the public and private sector to play a leading role in transforming these sorts of values. Within the public sector, Wang identifies the school system as a potential agent of change. He expresses hope that a greater emphasis in the curriculum on the interdependent relationship between Kaohsiung, its citizens, and the world will help to create a value shift in the local populace. Through joint ventures between the public and private sectors, Wang hopes to see externally focused industrial elite models emerge, both because Kaohsiung is an industrial center and because of the local inward focus on its industrial character.

Ho Tong Po, Deputy Secretary General of Kaohsiung City Government, echoes many of Wang’s concerns regarding the insular trends in Kaohsiung’s urban populace and, like Wang, seeks to heighten residents’ awareness of spiritual as well as material urban issues. Ho maintains that while the city has preserved its authority in the classroom and is thus able to inculcate students with a sense of spiritual values, this socialization does not last without reinforcement at home. With the family’s transformation into a smaller, more mobile unit increasingly comprised of adults working outside the home, it is no longer effectively reinforcing the values taught in the schools.

Ho hopes the media will take responsibility for promoting civic values. The media, Ho argues, is well suited to this task in a rapidly transformed society in which once-rural residents no longer recognize their neighbors and a sense of community has consequently slipped away. The relatively recent introduction of democracy in Taiwanese society has created more possibilities for civic participation in shaping Kaohsiung’s future, but civil society is showing only limited signs of developing. The media can do much to foster a sense of belonging to Kaohsiung and to help residents become more aware of opportunities for participation in their community. Ho sees more evidence of the former than does Wang, but hopes to see the media urging more people to get involved. Government sponsorship of more and better- quality leisure activities can help build community unity, but the government must have the cooperation of the media, and the people of Kaohsiung must become more willing to sacrifice their time and effort for the community if civil society is to meaningfully establish itself in Kaohsiung.

Joseph N.Y. Wu, Research Fellow at National Sun Yat-Sen University, underscored many of the points raised by Wang and Ho, most notably decrying the moral vacuum in Kaohsiung, in which traditional community values have been lost before new values have arisen to take their place. Wu divides human resource problems into three categories: those of health, science, and morality. While attending to the material aspects of an urban population is a relatively straightforward proposition, teaching a populace the role of law and imparting other values are far more complex endeavors, especially when individual goals are in conflict with those of the community.

Kaohsiung faces the challenge of developing a sense of collective awareness without the aid of the religious commonality and its attendant symbols and rituals available to more traditional communities. In contrast to Wang, who argues that NGOs have a role to play here, Wu sees the workplace as a potential site of moral inculcation, chiefly because of its broad reach. Wu believes it is more realistic to attempt to reach the city’s people at work because the work site is a locally grounded venue and because the workplace is a familiar social institution. Wu remains skeptical about enticing the inward and individually focused residents of Kaohsiung into newer and often more internationally focused institutions.

A series of questions arose regarding the current state of citizen participation in decision-making about development issues. The responses indicate that the government’s efforts in this area are limited to what it can incorporate into the school curriculum. However, the Kaohsiung City government is promoting "life-long learning" which includes "hundreds of topics."

Chiang Yi-Wen strongly supports the need for "physical, technical and spiritual development of [Kaohsiung’s] people." Subsequent debate concentrated on the problems associated with drastic changes in "spiritual" values. The radical changes in family values and structures as exemplified by the drop in the birth rate and the rise in the number of elderly people living alone are of major concern.

It was pointed out that these problems are not unique to Kaohsiung and that many will be ameliorated as democratization matures and as people rely more on themselves and less on their leaders to make decisions. Changes to the urban fabric will follow from changes to the society and from engaging with internationalism. There have already been substantial changes to the type of housing offered by the market to accommodate the changes in family structure.

Satisfactory development will require that public and private sectors work with the community in a partnership based on trust. Building trust will take time. Raising the awareness of the population to the level needed for the people to play an appropriate part will also take time. If the citizens are to make appropriate decisions, they need adequate data, a clearly defined and mutually accepted vision, and a good understanding of issues and consequences.

Kaohsiung can learn and benefit from the experiences of others. It may progress confidently toward the future if its people and their leaders—both public and private, political and industrial, academic and clerical—work together to develop

• a common vision for the city and its environs;

• a mechanism for dealing with problems and arriving at practicable decisions;

• mechanisms for initiating and funding various new programs and activities, and
• city management that has adequate resources at its disposal and which is independent of city politics.

Other cities with similar aspirations and problems have succeeded in attaining many of the dreams of their inhabitants. With courage, cooperation, commitment, common sense, education, and foresight, Kaohsiung should soon become an attractive, livable city that reflects the high level of civil quality of its citizenry.

As Jih-Hwa Wu, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Affairs Management at National Sun Yat-Sen University, explains, stagnation and decline are inevitable phases in an industrial growth cycle, making industrial revitalization a perennial challenge to all cities. Industries exhaust resources, resulting in decline, loss of jobs, and loss of revenue. As a consequence, public services suffer, adversely affecting the urban landscape. Just as multiple factors are responsible for bringing about stagnation in the city of Kaohsiung, so is the adoption of a variety of measures necessary to revitalize its manufacturing sector. Innovation is central to this process.

A number of circumstances can signal the need to introduce a new technology to help spur revitalization. An industry might lose its competitive edge, indicating the need to change production methods and restructure the industry. Often, the city center declines or the global economy adversely affects the local economy. Local government might find itself constrained in terms of financial resources or might confront a situation in which its residents seek to participate in the development of their city. All of these events point to the need for revitalization.

The causes of the current stagnation in Kaohsiung are varied. Because Kaohsiung is an industrial city, a decline in the industrial gross product from secondary or tertiary industry directly affects its labor force. While this sort of structural problem cannot be changed in the short term, the service sector is sometimes able to cushion its ill effects, though Kaohsiung’s service industries face limitations in terms of human capital and other factors. The slow growth in Kaohsiung’s service sector itself constitutes a major obstacle to economic development, which is further impeded by the weak condition of the city’s emerging high-technology industries.

Though Kaohsiung’s municipal government lacks the authority to attract industries by either offering tax incentives or creating local government bonds, its local government can, and indeed must, play a proactive role in the rejuvenation of its industries. This can be partially accomplished through the integration of city promotion and industrial marketing into planning. No less important is local government’s active participation in industrial planning and policy-making. Local government must cooperate with the private sector and thus encourage its participation in local development. Another crucial factor in this process is the flow of information. Kaohsiung’s municipal government must strive to maintain clear channels of communication that will keep it informed of developments in local industry.

Though most of the steps described above can be taken immediately, they will be ineffective without simultaneous progress on several long-term goals. Chief among these is expanding higher education in South Taiwan. City planners have long been aware of the fact that increasing the speed of innovation industries to bring Kaohsiung up to par with other regional cities will necessitate the training of a highly skilled work force. To this end, Kaohsiung’s established universities are developing new programs, and construction of a new city university is underway. Another long-range project is the construction of a new airport, which will be vital to improving accessibility to economic markets. It is hoped that these developments and others will improve the living environment. Kaohsiung must endeavor to do what it can to overcome its legacy of environmental neglect so that more good people will be drawn to reside within its limits.

S.K. Jason Chang, Professor of Transport Systems at National Taiwan University, agrees with Wu that the factors discussed above are responsible for causing many of Kaohsiung’s current manufacturing woes. Chang draws on his experiences as an Urban Planning Committee Member to offer a set of suggestions for more effective government assistance with industrial revitalization in Kaohsiung.

In Chang’s view, local government’s role is five-fold. Most fundamentally, local government serves in a policy-making capacity. In addition, it must establish and maintain clear and swift communication channels through which information regarding zoning, law, and cooperation with neighboring regions may pass. The municipality must also be willing to share risks with local industry and offer industry incentives to actively participate in community affairs. Another function of local government is to provide the city with both physical infrastructure and "information infrastructure." Finally, municipal government serves as a conduit for the transfer of technology.

In light of city government’s multi-faceted role, Kaohsiung must redouble its efforts to help its industries meet the challenges posed in the 21^st century. Chang proposes adopting four new practices by which government may become more proactive in local industrial renewal. First, Kaohsiung’s local government must consider local needs and resources when setting goals, and then coordinate those goals with surrounding counties. Second, more incentives must be offered for the development of industry and infrastructure. Chang points to the example of the stagnation of the Mass Rapid Transit (hereafter MRT) project as a case in which local government’s overtures to industries may benefit both sectors, and commends Mayor Wu for his efforts to reach out to industry in attempting to proceed with MRT development. Chang also urges Kaohsiung’s government to develop a strategic plan to recast the city as a financial and transit hub for freight service into Mainland China. Finally, Chang complains that privatization lags at the level of information exchange. Chang hopes to see local government establish a board for the development of an action plan capable of catalyzing the privatization of much of Kaohsiung’s industry. Hopefully, the privatization of China Steel, successfully accomplished four years ago, can serve as a model for other local industries.

As Chairman of China Steel, Kaohsiung’s largest employer and a regional industrial leader, Wang Chung-Yu shares Chang’s enthusiasm for forging partnerships between corporate and government leaders in Kaohsiung to promote the city’s industrial revitalization. Wang offers four practicable suggestions to help city leaders surmount the material and structural constraints on government and manufacturing in Kaohsiung.

Given the excessive power central government wields in city governance, Wang argues that it is imperative for local government to avail itself of all of its limited power in the effort to build and nurture its industries. Building on this idea, Wang advises city leaders to create policies that give preference to local companies in awarding contracts for public works projects. Many companies with a local presence in Kaohsiung are headquartered in—and pay their taxes to—Taipei. Wang’s proposal would result in increased tax revenues for Kaohsiung. Wang’s third recommendation involves marketing the city to attract foreign direct investment. Without the means to offer tax incentives, which can only be doled out by the central government, local leaders must have a plan to offer international corporations non-tax incentives, perhaps by offering land or infrastructure improvements that will allow corporations to utilize land more efficiently. Finally, Wang suggests that government should not lose sight of the fact that re-engineering requires new concepts, which they might acquire by hiring corporate leaders to play a greater role in planning.

From Wang and Chang’s remarks and the ensuing discussion, five main recommendations emerged from the roundtable:

The industrial base of Kaohsiung is heavy and chemical industries. These industrial sectors were very competitive and productive in the 1980s. However, they now require vast infusions of capital and energy. Kaohsiung particularly needs to upgrade its industrial structures in high-technology oriented sectors such as micro-electronics.

In a global economy, competition is fierce. To meet competitive challenges, government must adopt the role of a service-oriented partner.

In the 1980s, mass labor forces were necessary for mass production. However, in the knowledge-based economy of the 1990s, a highly skilled labor force is more important than ever.

Well-organized infrastructure can attract foreign investment. Well-educated workers prefer to live in areas with a high-quality living environment, thus efforts to improve the quality of life in Kaohsiung are essential.

The comparison of Kaohsiung with Taipei is not productive in a globalized world economic system. Kaohsiung must identify and capitalize on its strategic locational and industrial-sector advantages. For instance, Kaohsiung has a more efficient port facility for containers than either Hong Kong or Singapore.

Local government must play a varied and proactive role in the revitalization of Kaohsiung’s industrial sector. As a service-oriented partner to industry, government must seek to cooperate with the private sector in planning and policy-making, and to maximize the flow of information to the private sector, serving as a conduit for technology transfer. Industrial revitalization will also require local government to work within its limitations to develop creative means to attract international corporations to Kaohsiung, perhaps by offering land or infrastructure improvements. Improving human resource capacities and improving the city’s quality of life in order to attract well-educated workers to Kaohsiung will also be essential to the industrial rejuvenation process.

Seeking to elucidate Kaohsiung’s urban environmental problems, Su Shu-Jen Blanka and Lian-Shang Wu, professors of geography at National Kaohsiung Normal University, conducted interviews with city officials in 11 municipal districts in the first four months of 1998. From these data Su identifies seven critical deficiencies in Kaohsiung’s urban environment. She goes on to assess the current status of efforts underway in the areas of housing and urban renewal, historical preservation and creation of a city image. Su concludes by offering city planners a long-term agenda for the sustainable metropolitan development of Kaohsiung based on the cultivation of a civil society.

In light of Kaohsiung’s twin objectives of becoming a more livable metropolis while sharpening its competitiveness in international markets, Su identifies seven aspects of urban life in need of improvement. The first of these concerns access to the city. Noting that visitors’ initial impressions are the most lasting, Su stresses the need to improve conditions at the airport, bus, and rail terminals to facilitate the smooth flow of traffic into and out of these areas. Next, Su highlights air pollution and waste disposal problems resulting from failure to enforce environmental regulations, and lack of adequate facilities for garbage burial and incineration. Water contamination, which Su claims is endemic in all of the city’s rivers, is another pressing problem. Only by better controlling industrial and agricultural river pollution will the city be able to provide residents with clean water.

Most of the remaining problems Su identifies relate to the utilization of urban space and the flow of traffic through the city. The intra-city transportation system is woefully inadequate for a city of Kaohsiung’s size. Su decries the incomplete bus system and questions the wisdom of planners’ seven-year focus on a public transit system that appears ill suited to a city with few commuters and many motorcyclists. Moreover, the city lacks sufficient parking to accommodate travel by private car. Automobiles and pedestrians must compete for space, which blocks commercial conduits and harms retail business.

Su also expresses concern over inadequate zoning and land use control. Mixed land use, though beneficial to Kaohsiung’s initial development, has caused public health problems in recent years by making the containment of industrial pollution too difficult to control. This issue is connected with urban safety, the final area Su designates for improvement. Efforts to reduce industrial hazards in Kaohsiung must include signs alerting people to danger, improved safety precautions, and the establishment of stricter environmental standards for industry.

Su’s assessment of the urban environment also treats efforts underway in the areas of housing, historical preservation, urban landmarks, and city marketing. Most of Kaohsiung’s housing problems are related to management of older urban settlements, which are full of sub-standard housing and derelict properties that often become sites of unsanitary waste disposal or dangerous squats. Squatters’ habitation of vacant industrial sites poses unique problems to Kaohsiung.

Although the predominance of heavy industry in Kaohsiung has not bequeathed an abundance of historical sites in need of preservation, structures of architectural significance nevertheless exist. City officials must now strive to rejuvenate them. While it is true that Kaohsiung is a relatively young city, the time has come to begin protecting buildings constructed during the Japanese colonial administration, which did much to develop the city between 1920 and the final years of the Second World War. Though there is some debate over the degree to which Kaohsiung should celebrate this period of alien rule, these sites remain a part of Kaohsiung’s history and must not be allowed to decay or be forgotten. Moreover, they may be helpful in the effort to cultivate an urban image for the city.

Another image may be developed out of Kaohsiung’s oceanfront and rivers. The city’s waterways could help underscore its connectedness to outside regions and promote endeavors to keep these channels clean. The establishment of city symbols will lay the groundwork for marketing Kaohsiung. Packaging the city’s historical, cultural, and physical attributes presents a significant challenge to city officials. If its marketing efforts are to be successful, Kaohsiung must coordinate with neighboring administrations to achieve clean up and preservation of its resources.

Effecting the above-mentioned changes necessitates forging a partnership not just between Kaohsiung and neighboring regional officials, but between city officials and residents. A strong civil society in Kaohsiung can help ensure a unified community, fair allocation of resources, and thus, Su hopes, a better quality of life for its residents.

Kao Ming-Rea, Director of the Institute of Public Affairs Management at National Sun Yat-Sen University, agrees with Su on the need for Kaohsiung city officials to work harder to build a dialogue between residents and planners. However, Kao urges officials to adopt a more considered approach to determining a market position for Kaohsiung before charging ahead with the city’s marketing project. For Kao, the city’s problems can be reduced to the issue of the utilization of its environmental and municipal resources.

Kao urges city officials to develop an ecological guidance plan, which may include events promoting environmental awareness among citizens. Kaohsiung’s natural environment and especially its waters have been abused and must now be restored and protected. The lamentable imposition of improper technologies on natural resources has been halted, but little progress has been made in the way of repairing past environmental destruction. Recently published statistics reveal the lack of trees and green spaces in Kaohsiung. These figures can help set benchmarks that can then be publicized to generate will on the part of residents to reverse this trend. Kao urges new planners to broaden their focus beyond economic growth to include people’s need for contact with the natural environment.

Lee-Shing Fang, Director of the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, stressed the importance of plant and animal life in the eco-system, which have too long been ignored in Kaohsiung and beyond. Fang laments the unsystematic manner in which development imperatives determined that the mountains' monkeys might be preserved, while the fish and crabs would disappear from the ocean, emphasizing the need to consider the ecosystem as a whole when assessing the impact of proposed development. If the tension between human needs and the needs of other life forms in the city continues to be resolved in favor of short-term human interests, Fang warns, the consequences will ultimately be devastating for the future of human and, indeed, all life in the city.

Recommendations for managing Kaohsiung’s natural resources and improving the urban environment focused on four key areas: transportation, environmental quality control, civic identity, and citizen participation.

Kaohsiung is in clear need of improvements to both its intra- and inter-city transportation systems, including the provision of additional parking within the city. The private sector’s involvement in these efforts will be instrumental to alleviating circulation problems and other inadequacies within the system. Singapore’s experience with privatization may be relevant.

Environmental quality, particularly water quality, is another pressing concern. Waste treatment facilities must be improved to control river contamination, and farmers must pay for treatment of livestock waste. Strict enforcement of Kaohsiung’s guidelines on environmental protection and pollution control is necessary to monitor pollution from industry and agriculture.

Greater sensitivity to Kaohsiung’s place within the natural environment is also needed, both from an environmental preservation standpoint and as a means of building civic identity. Development of the city should be implemented within the context of the natural environment, using an ecological guidance plan as a benchmark. Serious consideration must be given to the potential for developing the city’s image around its waterways, and incorporating this image into a tourism strategy. Kaohsiung can also take steps to present a positive image to visitors by improving the areas around urban gateways and developing city symbols and landmarks.

The success of the city’s efforts to improve the urban environment and build civic identity and pride will be largely dependent on involving the citizens in improvement programs. The city must develop a campaign to raise citizens’ consciousness about healthy urban living and invite participation in creating a more livable city. Programs such as "Clean up Australia," and Malaysia’s "Gotong Royong" program encouraging citizen participation in neighborhood improvements may provide useful models.

PRCUD President Lim Lan Yuan, begins his discussion by asking how Kaohsiung can develop more of an international presence. The emergence of new information technologies, Lim points out, bring with them new opportunities for the globalization of Kaohsiung’s port and trade. Once Kaohsiung establishes a niche for itself, it can then begin to apply itself to the task of overcoming its limitations.

Lim identifies three urgent needs the city must address before it can begin to successfully globalize. These include 1.) improving communication facilities 2.) facilitating knowledge sharing, and 3.) speeding up the implementation phases of urban planning.

Noting that a large number of issues and strategies had been raised throughout the conference, Lim crystallizes what he sees as the most important of these into a set of nine practical measures. Unlike some of the other speakers, Lim envisions a greater role for city-officials in leading the plan for the transformation of Kaohsiung, which will hopefully spur citizens to greater participation in urban development later in the transformation process. Lim’s steps include:

• Government support of industry through investment incentives, the promotion of consistent legal and taxation systems, and the systematization of communication between different administrative bodies
• Improvement to infrastructure that aims to develop an efficient communication and transportation network, with special attention given to the harbor and airport
• Increased environmental controls and protection
• Development of human resources through an emphasis on improving education, particularly in English language training and information technologies to meet the needs of an advanced economy. Increased enrollment in higher education will help in the development of high-level services for research and development, but until that goal is met, efforts must be made to attract and retain highly skilled personnel from outside the area.
• Promotion of arts and culture through the establishment of more museums and concert halls in order to help instill a sense of civic awareness, engender civic pride, and promote social values
• Efforts to improve the quality of life for residents to foster greater satisfaction with their lives and a greater sense of security
• Building on the comparative advantages of housing market access and greater land mass, and tapping of the resources in Taipei through more regional cooperation
• Promotion of high technology industries, including science-based industrial development and the construction of a science park
• Establishment of external links and the adoption of a more international orientation to attract investment both locally and abroad

Lim concludes by stressing the primacy of developing infrastructure and a technologically skilled workforce to provide Kaohsiung’s industries with a competitive edge to take advantage of its central position in the world’s fastest growing market.

Roger Stough, Director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, cautions that though Kaohsiung has made considerable progress toward its goals, much remains to be done in the way of restructuring in order to maintain competitiveness in a more global environment. Toward the achievement of this goal, Stough offers a four-step formula that is within the reach of city officials.

The first area of Stough’s focus is human capital. He argues that it is essential for Kaohsiung to either create or attract people with higher skills to work in its industries. This in turn will necessitate fostering a perception that quality of life improvements are already in place. It will also require enhancing education in the region with new investments, which is clearly a step city planners are already in the process of taking, as is manifest by both the burgeoning of educational institutions in the city in recent years and the current project underway to build a new university. A university can serve as an ideal nexus between local and international culture. New movie complexes might also promote local exposure to international ideas and can help open up thinking. International educational exchange opportunities must be made available, perhaps even made mandatory in some programs.

The second of Stough’s points is that Kaohsiung’s role as springboard to the mainland must be more developed. In terms of its proximity and culture, Stough contends, Taiwan is better placed to fulfill this role than Hong Kong, a competing port city in the region.

Third, Stough calls for the acceleration of innovation and the development of better technology in the region as a whole and especially in the port. Other ports are technologically ahead of Kaohsiung and if this imbalance is not redressed, Kaohsiung’s port could begin to lag behind its regional competitors.

Finally, Stough proposes improving the management of inter-governmental relations at both local and provincial government levels. Coordination with Mainland China must be strengthened so that resources may be channeled back to Kaohsiung. These measures, Stough claims, will increase Kaohsiung’s competitiveness by improving efficiency and quality of service.

Wang Chuan Fang, a founding member and first President of the Pacific Rim Council on Urban Development, directs discussion toward Kaohsiung’s strategic approach to internationalization. Noting that internationalization is many cities’ dream, Wang urges Kaohsiung’s leaders to be realistic about the city’s limitations when setting up a strategy. Drawing on the writings of the philosopher of war Sun Tze, Wang advises Kaohsiung to consider its adversaries to better understand itself. Wang identifies Taipei as Kaohsiung’s competition and advises Kaohsiung to attempt to excel at what Taipei does badly. Kaohsiung enjoys an accessibility that’s lacking in Taipei, which must be put to better use in the years ahead. Building on this accessibility, Kaohsiung can innovate with an intelligent plan based on a citizens’ consensus behind the mayor’s leadership.

Leslie Gunby, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kaohsiung and a fourteen-year expatriate resident of Taiwan, echoes Wang’s call for a partnership between residents and city officials. To facilitate this, Gunby suggests that city officials initiate a campaign to educate citizens about the progress the city has made in recent years. One example of an advance people remain ill informed about is the improvement in city waste disposal. Mayor Wu installed three incinerators in Kaohsiung over the past two years to deal with the garbage problem, a move that resulted in cleaner neighborhoods throughout the city. Nor has there been enough publicity about the expansion of green spaces in Kaohsiung. New parks are still empty, possibly because people are not aware that they exist.

In addition to these larger efforts, Gunby tells us, small steps can also be taken to effect greater cooperation between residents and city officials. Simple measures such as the introduction of stickers on designated taxis to indicate that drivers speak English can help bring people back to Kaohsiung and increase Kaohsiung’s international accessibility.

Lin Chai-Yuan, Vice-President and Professor at National Sun Yat-Sen University, kept his remarks brief by simply urging conference organizers to send copies of this report to the Kaohsiung City Council. Lin remains convinced that these international exchanges can directly assist Kaohsiung in furthering its globalization.

A thorough and incisive paper by Chen Chi-Tze, Director of the Public Works Bureau for the Kaohsiung City Government, demonstrated the scope of the issues surrounding the future of Kaohsiung. However, the comprehensive nature of Chen’s paper notwithstanding, the session begged further consideration of the interface between city experience and city planning. In this regard, Soong Hseik-Wen, Assistant Professor at the Graduate Institute of Science at National Chung Cheng University, and Lee Fu-Den, President of Hospitality College, highlighted the obvious need for more attention to the development of the tourist industry, which is often a catalyst for city improvements and an excellent vehicle for expanding community awareness. The well placed contributions of all the panelists gave an appropriate introduction to the session as a whole, and established the scope for defining strategic directions for the future.

Chi-Tze Chen brings his experience as Director of the Public Works Bureau for Kaohsiung City Government to bear in sketching the globalization strategy for the coming century. In Chen’s vision, global cities possess institutions such as highly centralized financial services and multinational corporation headquarters. Global cities play a role in the distribution, integration, and control of international economic resources. As attaining these attributes in Kaohsiung will necessarily entail some sacrifice, Chen offers several reasons why it makes sense for Kaohsiung to reshape itself into a global city.

Chen first explains why Kaohsiung is uniquely poised to take advantage of recent trends and re-position itself in the new world order. He then charts the course for this shift in the direction of Kaohsiung’s planning focus.

Chen notes that because Kaohsiung fits the profile of a "harbor gateway city" in the Asian Pacific (the fastest growing region of the world’s economy), its once peripheral position has shifted to a more central one in the new international order. Kaohsiung already enjoys strengths in manufacturing, communications, and transportation on the island of Taiwan. In addition, Kaohsiung has several advantages that can enable it to become the heart of the region. These include:

• a distribution network of industries that is able to support manufacturing, storage, and export
• an infrastructure capable of developing an information network
• research and development capability at a number of institutions near the city center
• ease of transportation facilitated by an international harbor and airport and a central location for the international market
• a large and well-trained management and labor force
• an adequate supply of land
• an environment of cooperation between citizens, government, and industry
• an excellent track record of manufacturing experience
• supporting services
• natural resources to attract both tourists and longer-term residents
• an environmental protection program to promote community redevelopment

Of course many of the above-mentioned advantages require strengthening. Chief among these is the expansion of the harbor and airport. Chen also encourages development of a digital information system, a free trade zone, efficient storage services in the distribution center, and a financial service center capable of meeting the demands of funds and foreign exchange markets. Unified ruling authority and tighter overall planning will be required to enact these changes.

Chen notes that the timing is right for Kaohsiung’s internationalization in several respects. First and most important, the city is about to be reintegrated with the harbor. In addition, Taiwan has recently increased its outreach to regional organizations. Third, the introduction of a single European currency in 1999 will reduce Taiwanese dependence on the US and Japan. Finally, the total value of manufacturing in Kaohsiung has been decreasing over the last decade, indicating that the city’s industries must look to new ways of survival.

Chen proposes a number of short- and long-range strategies to be implemented in the city of Kaohsiung. Some of his more ambitious projects include establishing cross-regional cooperative organs, research and development industries, and the integration of a rapid transit system. More immediately, Chen hopes to de-centralize government, develop better environmental controls and phase in green controls, and more evenly distribute the burden of Kaohsiung’s development between the central government, the private sector, the city government, and the local community.

In Chen’s view, the key to Kaohsiung’s future is its ability to remake itself into a seaport-oriented gateway city. Just as the harbor and the city’s heavy industries have undergirded all economic development over the last five decade’s of Kaohsiung’s history, so Chen believes this foundation will continue to support all other growth in the city in the years to come. Building on this strength will not only assist the sustained development of Kaohsiung, but it will also help bring the whole of Taiwan forward in its plan to become a regional operations center in the Asian Pacific area. By reaching out from its own harbor across the ocean to other international bays, Kaohsiung can recreate itself as a city that is at once a seaport, an ocean-shipping center, an industrial production site, and an international destination.

Lee Fu-Den, President of Kaohsiung’s Hospitality College, shares Chen’s vision of Kaohsiung as a major seaport city but recommends that part of Kaohsiung’s strong ambition be channeled in the direction of determining Kaohsiung’s economic and marketing niche. Kaohsiung must build a role that is exclusively its own. Only then will the city be able to make use of its advantages of climate, geography, favorable world economic trends, and container port to catapult the city into a more prominent international position. For Lee, strong leadership and public participation will both be crucial to the realization of this ambition.

Continued progress on environmental clean up will also be central to the success of Kaohsiung’s strategic plan. There are two reasons for this. First, a greener, cleaner city will help Kaohsiung attract the high-skilled labor force it needs to carry out its plan. The dominance of heavy industry in Kaohsiung over the past half century has meant poor air quality and a lack of green space and recreational areas for residents. However, recent industrial and city efforts, such as the greening of China Steel’s complex, have shown that this need no longer be the case for the city. Secondly, a cleaner city that offers its residents more opportunities to enjoy their leisure time will also attract more tourism. The promotion of local culture, the hosting of international conferences, and education in foreign languages can all help to dispel the image of Kaohsiung as a polluted city with little to recommend itself to newcomers.

Speaking about the paradoxes and dangers of Kaohsiung’s globalization, Professor Soong Hseik-Wen takes a somewhat different tack. Soong cautions that while promoting international interdependence seems desirable, its implications are more complex than people realize. International values will often conflict with local values, introducing puzzlement, tension, and confusion into the city’s social fabric.

Soong reinforces Lee’s emphasis on the development of human capital and divides human resources into three components: elites, executives, and citizens. Each of these groups can help in different ways to build on Kaohsiung’s development, elites by bringing vision and direction into city planning, executives by voicing enthusiasm and offering to assist in policy actualization, and citizens by actively participating in planning and then evaluating those plans’ success. In Soong’s estimation, Kaohsiung is currently realizing only somewhere between 10 to 15 percent of its potential. Actors at all levels of city life must come forward to tap the city’s potential reserves.

It may seem an enormous conceit that a working group such as the PRCUD Round Table, could undertake anything more than a superficial analysis of the City of Kaohsiung after only three days of dialogue with local administrators, academics, and experts. But there is an inherent advantage in seeing the situation with a ‘clean eye,’ not only from the point of view of a single foreigner, but from multiple foreign perspectives.

It is clear that enthusiastic ambition for the city’s future is a paramount quality among the local representatives of the city. A considerable depth of understanding and a clear articulation of the challenges ahead match this enthusiasm. The Round Table demonstrated that all participants spoke a common language despite the lack of fluency in either Mandarin or English. The challenges and concepts that arose were not unique to Kaohsiung. We share them all, to varying degrees, wherever we come from.

The question remains as to how PRCUD could best contribute in circumstances in which the familiar tensions between globalization and localization, the public and private sectors, and short- and long-term strategies are already so well articulated and understood. The answer comes in the form of five guidelines that may direct the application of future policies and programs in the foreseeable period ahead. These guidelines are:

1. Recognize inherent limitations dictated by circumstance
2. Identify the city’s image
3. Plan for anticipated consequences of change
4. Enlarge infrastructure capacities
5. Provide options through diversification

1. The limitations of circumstance – making the best of what you have.

No other city shares Kaohsiung’s unique mix of features, including its demographic profile, the nature of the labor force, its inherited urban structure, and its natural endowments. Many people focus on what the city lacks. But the real problem is not what is missing from the city. Rather, the problem is recognizing the attributes the city does possess and turning them to advantage.

Nobody has it all. Recognition of limitations focuses policies on real problems and real capacities. Overly ambitious goals invite cynicism from a population that sees leadership failing to deliver and, ultimately, a loss of credibility.

The parallel between the fortunes of China Steel and the city seems obvious. China Steel has fulfilled the ambition to represent a world’s "best practice." It has done so incrementally, by diversifying, privatizing, and insisting on high environmental standards. At the same time, it has cultivated the loyalties of its workers. All this without losing sight of its fundamental role as a manufacturing employer. If a steel mill can elevate itself to the level of a potential tourist attraction, there is real hope for the city.

2. Identify the city’s image

It is important to identify the unique characteristics of Kaohsiung and to reinforce this identity internally through community awareness (as has been demonstrated in the White Paper) as well as externally, not as a global city but as an unique alternative for travelers, investors, and new residents.

The image of the industrial city of the 21^st century will not be the familiar image associated with the manufacturing processes of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. It will be the unique image of a "manufacturing city" characterized by amenities currently associated with commercial centers.

3. Plan for anticipated consequences of change

The consequences of change are a particularly dynamic factor in this Asian Pacific region. Significantly, China Steel, having been a major contributor to the city’s growth, now plans its future blast furnace for location overseas.

The role of the port depends upon a number of significant variables, none more important than the nexus with Mainland China, over which the city has little or no control.

Local area land use change must be seen in a wider context. The Multi-Function Commerce and Trade Park is not just an upgrading of an industrial site. Its location is the key to establishing a window for the city and an association with the harbor from which it been separated for so long.

The artificial barrier between the city jurisdiction and that of the port is now being erased. It is timely to anticipate an equally important breaking down of the separation between city and county. A regional approach is required in order to maintain a "critical mass" necessary to sustain the city’s growth.

Education has been a universal goal. Twentieth century urban populations have to face re-education of their labor force or their ability to survive will be fundamentally threatened in a world with a globalized market.

To look forward is not enough; it is necessary to learn from looking back. A comprehensive plan for heritage control must be established in addition to plans for future growth, as much as to give continuity to the city’s growth as to reflect on the city’s cultural heritage. The right balance can only be achieved by anticipation of change.

4. Enlarge infrastructure capacities

The single most critical independent variable to sustaining the city, or its growth, is the provision of infrastructure. As the regional concept becomes a reality, there will be a corresponding need for Kaohsiung to enlarge its means of electronic communication. The relationship between the city and county, the city and Taiwan, or the city and the Asia Pacific Regional Operations Center (APROC) is that of a wheel within wheels, where the spokes of the wheels are the lines of communication. Without the spokes, nothing moves.

Transportation improvements should concentrate upon public transport before Kaohsiung’s parking problems. Given the city’s relatively small population of 1.45 million people, the possibilities of light rail should be investigated before making a massive investment in underground rapid transit services.

Decisions on infrastructure determine the city’s growth pattern and must precede decisions related to the debate between satellite development and city renewal. One form of development should not be seen as a better alternative to the other; they are both parts of a single solution.

5. Provide options through diversification

As an ultimate ambition, Kaohsiung should seek to become a city that offers the greatest opportunities for choice. The need to diversify the employment base has already been recognized. Diversification needs to extend to raising the standards of the living environment, at the top end as well as well as at the general level.

Differentiation between modes of public transport and recreational opportunities (including the waterfronts) reinforces the role of the city as a viable alternative within Taiwan and the greater region.

Focusing on the diversity of Kaohsiung and the uniqueness of its particular mix of attributes not only gives the city an identity, but will also foster a tourism trade that is presently lacking. Greater immediate emphasis on tourism could initiate and sustain attention to local needs for improvement and still serve the ultimate goal of making Kaohsiung a world destination.

What might these objectives achieve and how would they be manifested to someone returning to Kaohsiung in the future, after an absence of a decade or more? Expectations might be:

• A city more directly associated with its harbor
• A bigger city with a critical mass that incorporates not only the harbor but also the adjacent county
• Substantial areas of redevelopment that are better managed and where regulations are enforced
• Historic preservation of buildings that reflects cultural values as well as architectural significance
• More areas of landscaped public open space, small but widely distributed, as a consequence of planned redevelopment
• More people using public transport and expensive public parking lots
• A better-educated, growing population, due to net inward migration in response to skilled employment opportunities
• An expanded middle class that demands higher environmental standards
• Differentiated areas of clean manufacturing and higher valued residential enclaves

Notwithstanding the diversity of skills and attainments of the members of the PRCUD Round Table, who we are is not important. What is important is why we came to Kaohsiung. Through the exchange of shared experiences, a bond has been strengthened among peers within an area of common geographic interest. There is a realization by all parties that there is much to share.

In that regard, this initial visit of PRCUD members can only be a foundation on which to build in the future. It can only be hoped that this modest attempt to codify a diverse range of subject matter is an encouragement to those now manning the ‘pump’, for that is what the port city of Kaohsiung is to the rest of Taiwan.

Finally, it seems appropriate to remind all those responsible for directing the shift from old to new opportunities to remember that the practice of city planning is itself a growth industry.