Keelung’s Urban Regenerate-Mega to Meta

Text/ Agnes Chen, Richard Lee Pictures/ Keelung City Government, MotionElements

“We have formulated an urban development strategy, which is a core with two wings, plus the “Keelung Valley Corridor” to connect the greater Taipei metropolis, and promote the “A Vision for Keelung City Harbor Plan” as our starting point. “

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The Age of Discovery: The Rise of the Keelung

     
As early as the 15th to 16th centuries, after the Spanish occupied the Philippines, they conducted international maritime trade through sailing ships. Along the Kuroshio Current in eastern Taiwan all the way to Japan, Keelung (called Chicken Coop at the time, the pronunciation is close to “Keelung.”) became the center of the north-south route. Therefore, the Spaniards, who were the first to discover this harbor, decided to build a city here and named it Fort San Salvador. Later, this place became a battleground for maritime hegemonies such as Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal.

     

The Primary Factor That Contributes to The Rise and Fall of Local Prosperity is The Economy

Archaeologists’ research on the ruins stretching from Keelung Port all the way to Heping Island revealed that Northern Taiwan already had historical evidence of prosperous trade exchanges with Southeast Asia and Far East trade. During the Japanese colonial period, economic and trade relations with Japan were even more frequent. Because it is a rare deep-water port in Taiwan, under the construction of the Taiwan Governor’s Office, Keelung Port not only has various functional areas such as shipyards, military ports, and fishing ports, but also has a complete warehousing system and railway transportation system in the port area, and also laid a good foundation for the development of Keelung Port.

As Top Ten World Container Port with Smooth Flow of Goods

After World War II, the government established the Keelung Port Authority in 1945 and built two large jetty terminals starting in 1974. The port area is also connected to expressways, making sea and land transportation more accessible to the production base in northern Taiwan. Keelung City developed rapidly around the container warehousing and transportation industry. From 1982 to 1992, the operating volume of Keelung Port increased rapidly, becoming the seventh largest container port in the world in 1984.

After the 1990s, the total shipping volume of Keelung Port began to decline, mainly due to the opening up from China, which gradually replaced some labor-intensive industries in Taiwan with low-cost labor. In order to face competition, the production base was transferred to China, and Taiwan exported Orders are also gradually being lost to China. There is also scale competition with other local ports in Taiwan, such as Kaohsiung Port. The port area of ​​Keelung Port is limited due to the limited hinterland inside the port, and it is difficult to expand outside the port area because it is close to Keelung City and the mountainous area. As a result, the ranking of Keelung Port has rapidly dropped from the top ten in the world to about the 30th to 40th international port. ranks.

The rise of China as the world’s factory is a trend of globalization. Indeed, by 2014, Keelung had lost its former glory. In 2000, with the advancement of technology and global financial liberalization in Taiwan’s finance, many people in Keelung switched to commuting work or migrating to Taipei, which has become Taiwan’s financial center. The rainy and gloomy city of Keelung not only has a population of less than 400,000, and is also considered by residents to be the unhappiest city.  

Urban Regeneration in Keelung City

From 2014 to 2022, Mayor Lin Youchang promoted Keelung’s urban regeneration plan with “one core, two wings”. The core refers to the one-day capital circle composed of Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taoyuan City, and Keelung City; while the two wings are a seaport (Keelung Port) and an airport (Taoyuan International Airport), forming an international MEGACITY, basic equipping the Greater Taipei returning to an important international metropolitan.

(Extended reading｜Keelung City Government x AECOM: Keelung City Urban Regeneration Strategic Plan )

Step One: Regeneration of City and Port, Integrating City and Port

Under the leadership of Mayor Lin, the Keelung City Government has jointly and proactively planned with the Taiwan International Port Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the Port Corporation), the military and other public and private units to dismantle the high wall that has cut off the port and the city for many years. Integrating and jointly promoting the westward relocation of the eastside container, the relocation of the military port; and the rezoning of eastside passenger’s port and westside port have broadened the horizons of Keelung Port. The focus of the relocation of the port-city unity is to rebuild the port from a port that serves GOODS to a port that serves PEOPLE.

All ports in Taiwan have undergone major changes in the port system since March 1, 2012. In order to cooperate with the reform of government organizations, the Ministry of Transportation has adopted the “separation of government and enterprise” approach and established the “Ministry of Transportation Airport Bureau” and “Port Corporation” respectively. (called “The Company”) “TheCompany” will separate the shipping administration and port administration public business from port operations, allowing the port management company to integrate the operation and development of each port. With great effort The Keelung City Government then used the incentives of urban renewal and a multi-win strategy to actively lead the integration of “The Company”, the military, the internal and external public and private sectors. Finally, the port and city was togetter intergrated without barrier, allowing Keelung citizens to gain open space access to the port , As a result, Keelung Port has become a modern commercial port for water-friendly cruise ships serving people.

Keelung Port Area is located in the city center, surrounded by mountains on three sides and the sea on one side. It is an excellent mountain-sea city. In addition to overlooking the ocean from the mountain, the entire regeneration strategy has also rebuilt the harbor building where you can live on the top of the new high floor and overlook the cruise ships docking. In addition to the development of sightseeing itineraries along the north coast of Keelung Port, the National Ocean Technology Museum piers, the international cruise, combined with modern technological innovation industrial bases, these signs from modern and beautiful seaside new settlement with rich cuetural experience and friendly and flat pedestrian Ocean Square.                 

Step Two: Improve the Quality of Life in This City

Taking the “Greater Keelung Historical Scene Representation and Integration Project” as the core value of urban development, the stories accumulated in Keelung’s cultural assets and other historical and cultural spaces will be constructed through the collective memory writing of people’s participation in life scenes/stories to build connections with modern society. value, in order to arouse a sense of glory from the Keelung people and move towards the future of Keelung.

 Talent is the Source of Urban Economic Vitality

Of course, Keelung already has the National Ocean University and the Fisheries Experimental Institute affiliated with the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, which use their rich experience to cultivate talents in the fields of marine industry research and development and maritime development.

But in addition to a city’s hardware upgrade plan, it also needs to bring in “talents.” The service industry surrounding the cruise ship needs talents of various languages, international hotels, catering and tourism to come in and provide world-class services.

Therefore, developing more convenient “transportation” with the region, attracting livable office environment and quality of life to attract talents, it is inevitable that the detailed strategies required to create a successful “port that serves people” will require more time. To be developed organically.

 Accessible Transportation

The “A Vision for Keelung City Harbor Plan” includes many sub-projects. After removing the high wall between the city and the harbor, Keelung City needs to activate transportation construction to attract tourists, or attract new talents to enter/return to their hometowns for development. In the future, in addition to the transportation connection between the MRT and light rail in the capital area, Keelung is also well-positioned to develop a diversified network of water transportation and land transportation to fully integrate Taipei, New Taipei Light Rail, Keelung urban buses, ferries and express electric buses into one metro pass.

(Extended reading｜MRT dream comes true, Keelung presses forward )

 Harbor economy

From the perspective of marine fisheries, there are nine first-class fishing ports in Taiwan, and Keelung accounts for two (Badouzi and Zhengbin Fishing Ports). The economic value of fishery is the highest in Taiwan. The Fisheries Laboratory has devoted its efforts to fishery production, management, and marine biotechnology research and development, and many of its studies have even been successfully applied to related industries such as marine pharmaceuticals, cosmeceuticals, biomedicine, and biotechnology.

As the epidemic slows down the prosperity of the global cruise economy, under the new policy of “Eastern Passengers and Western Cargoes”, the East Coast has made room for the development of the tourism industry as a cruise home port. Improve the surrounding facilities of the harbor, use the long coastal environment of the port area to create an unobstructed coastal walkway of about 2 kilometers, connect the east and west coast port areas, cooperate with yacht and marine conservation, integrate the marine leisure industry, and also become a driving force for the greater Taipei area to rely on the ocean. Starting point for sightseeing.

Step Three: Symbiosis and Co-prosperity with Regional Partners to Face Global Competition

Over the past eight years, Mayor Lin and the Keelung City Government have reached a consensus with the region and the central government: with a high degree of regional cooperation, in addition to building Keelung itself well, if Keelung is good, Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan will be better. Everyone jointly took the initiative to find problems, actively planned, positioned Keelung from an integration perspective based on overall regional cooperation, and worked hard to make changes happen. We hope that the Greater Taipei Metropolitan Area will work together to face post-globalization competition.

 Next stop: Keelung—Mega to Meta

Keelung has walked through the prosperous historical showcase, and has also experienced the ups and downs of talents leaving and industries withering away. Keelung has undergone a transformation in recent years, so you can immediately feel its changes when you walk into Keelung. We look forward to Keelung developing into a more livable waterfront city in the future.

(Extended reading | [Sustainable Ocean City] Turning Keelung!!! Analyze the urban regeneration of Keelung!!! ) 

      
Conclusion
     

We can know from the Keelung City Government’s many urban development plans that the transformation of Keelung is not just about point-to-point development, but about connecting points to points into more efficient lines, and then connecting the greater Taipei Metropolitan Area into a International aspect. At present, the logistics industry, tourism industry, and fishery are being macro-integrated into regional economic development. In the future, the beautiful seaport office environment will be used to attract talents and investment funds in Keelung.

Xu Yanxing, director of the Urban Development Department of Keelung City Government, said: “Now is the world of the Internet, and the Internet does not have a sense of space. Without a sense of space, a sense of place is even more needed.”

(Extended reading｜Keelung City Urban Governance Strategy｜Exclusive interview with Xu Yanxing, Director of Keelung City Urban Development Office )

Keelung’s urban regeneration project was launched not only through numerous individually obtained case funds, but also through Keelung’s urban regeneration, combined with convenient transportation, to create a livable and beautiful sense of place along the Keelung coast, accompanied by a specific Talents with an international outlook will connect Taiwan’s best harbor to the one-day capital life circle of Kitao, thereby turning Greater Taipei into a sustainable ocean city that connects the world. …[For more exciting articles, please read the 2023 Spring Issue of WalkingBlock ]