The density is close to that of Bangladesh, the highest in the world. So Taiwan has tripled it's population in the past 60 years and it is mostly a mountainous island so not much developable land is coming online. That population increase has fueled an increase in housing prices. As Taiwan moved from a totally agricultural economy to a mostly manufacturing economy, most people now live near the cities and farmland close to the cities has become apartments.
Some of these farmers had become rich as they sold their land to developers. Land prices have gone up for the past 60 years but now that the population is leveling off, the pressure now is not the population increase but the drive for location, location, location.
As land has become more dear, the building practices change to maximize the scarce resource. So the older 2 story home are replaced, from:
to higher to get more living space:
In the above tower, his neighboring land owners are probably waiting for landprices settle before they decide how high to build their own towers.
Between these new building are the ghosts of their neighbors.
and
The original streets weren't laid out with such land prices in mind so we have the same triangle buildings like in NYC.
Will the US get as dense as Taiwan as gas prices increase? We'll see.
1 comment:
It's always a shame to see lovely old buildings torn down. It sounds like there is more of a need for housing in Taiwan, though, than in Bellevue. Tucson is trying to preserve it's historic downtown area, with some success. Tucson is sprawling since there is still much land available.
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