Smart Taichung, yet
How smart can the city of Taichung become? Before answering that, we need to focus first on where we are in and exactly where are we heading to as of now.
Taichung at a Glance
Taichung is a metro city with 2.75 million residents, excluding 2/3 of college students (or 150,000 roughly) and more than 69,000 alien workers who reside here but not a part of the registered citizenship. How smart can Taichung be when there are more than 200,000 people not accounted.
Point of interest: 17 university campuses, places where foreign workers gather
Taichung is not just a city but a merger of urban and rural districts, a total of 29. Out of them, three have a population base more than 200,000 while the bottom three register less than 20,000. It is a city with struggling downtown, new civic centers and outback villages.
Point of interest: struggling downtown, new civic center, outback villages.
Taichung is a city with both airport and seaport. Its seaport was made possible in the 1970s as an arm of regional development. Today, it has become the second largest port in Taiwan with an annual volume of 7800 inbound and outbound ships, totaling more than 70 million tonnage and 1.4 million teu of cargo. On the other hand, Taichung’s international airport, a joint venture between the air force and private airlines, is still waiting for permission from the central government to be a real “international” airport. Right now, it has an annual traffic of 1.5 million international visitors from more than 20 Asian cities in 26,000 flights.
Point of interest: Taichung harbour, Taichung airport 2
Finally, but not the least, the former airport was turned into a new development center that connects the science-based industrial park with the city core. Sized more than 250 hectares, this is an ongoing site that has undergone stages of positioning and repositioning. It will have the largest in-city central park along with a new culture center, a new library, a new cinema center, a convention center, a new forwarding station, even a Taiwan Tower (more than 300 meters, gutted by the new mayor). It was proclaimed as the first smart and low-carbon district in the city in the years to come.
Point of Interest: Taichung Gateway District
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