Gentrification and revanchist urbanism in Taipei?

Abstract

As policy and theory travel, comparative urbanism becomes important to address questions concerning if and how gentrification and revanchist urbanism have ‘gone South’, or ‘gone East’. In recent decades, Taipei has experienced a shift in economic base, massive urban renewal, neoliberal reforms and associated social polarisation. In this paper we ask to what extent gentrification and revanchist urbanism are relevant concepts for understanding processes of urban restructuring in this East Asian developmental state capital city. The analysis relates national and urban politics to gentrification of the Yongkang, Qingtian, Wenzhou and Huaguang neighbourhoods in Daan District, Taipei. We investigate manifestations of Atkinson’s four analytical strands of revanchist urbanism in Taipei. We conclude that revanchist urbanism has, to a considerable extent, formed urban development in Taipei during the last quarter century, and that unless democratising forces tame the power of finance and property capital, effectively claiming the right to the city, urban improvements by progressive movements will be valorised by the architects of revanchist urbanism: finance and property capital.

Keywords

gentrification neoliberalisation redevelopment revanchist urbanism Taipei

Introduction

On 9 April 1992, bulldozers commenced demolition of a decades old ‘squatter’ settlement in central Taipei to make space for Daan Park, branded as the Central Park of Taipei. After years of legal struggles, police and militia evicted roughly 12,000 residents (2600 households) from the 26 hectare area, as redevelopment and gentrification intensified along the avenues surrounding the park-to-be and into adjacent areas. Emphasising social order, efficient land-use and aesthetic design over ‘social justice or the problem of the urban poor’ (Chen, 2005: 112), urbanisation in Taipei increasingly came to be fashioned by and for the ascending new middle class (Hsiao, 1993).

As of 2013 a similar eviction of nearly 700 households and demolition of homes on 11 hectares is underway in the Huaguang neighbourhood, situated between Daan Park and the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. Planned in 2007 to become Taipei’s Wall Street, focus shifted from New York finance to Tokyo nightclubs when the plan was changed in 2012 to Taipei Roppongi. Redevelopment of Huaguang is part of a programme to ‘activate land’ under the Supervisory Team for Cleaning and Reviving State-Owned Land (Shih, 2013). Incorporated into the Economic Power-Up Plan, the first stage alone (2.8 hectares) is expected to attract USD$125 million in investment and over a billion in revenue (Executive Yuan, 2013).

Between these two mega-redevelopments lies the neighbourhood of Yangkong, Qingtian and Wenzhou Streets. Nested between three underground lines, National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (completed 1980) and Daan Park (opened 1994), the neighbourhood has experienced rapidly escalating land values, commercial and residential gentrification and small-scale redevelopments. Luxury apartment prices along Daan Park currently exceed USD$13.7 million (The China Post, 2012).

There is a special liking in Taipei to compare the city with New York, the glossiest examples being Daan ‘Central Park’, Xinyi ‘Manhattan of Taipei’ (home of Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building between 2004 and 2010), and the as yet unrealised vision of Taipei Wall Street. Here we will draw a different association with New York, where Neil Smith (1996, 1998, 1999) graphically revealed the forces and consequences of revanchist urban politics. To what extent has urban development in Taipei in recent decades been formed by revanchist urban politics? Are the concepts of gentrification and revanchist urbanism apposite to understanding recent processes of urban restructuring in this Asian developmental state capital(ist) city?

We first review the concept of revanchist urbanism, relating it to gentrification and neoliberalism. We then contextualise the recent history of Taipei vis-à-vis other East Asian developmental cities and present an overview of urban redevelopment politics in Taipei. Finally, focus shifts to gentrification and revanchist urbanism in the Yongkang, Qingtian and Wenzhou neighbourhoods, which has been ‘gentle and democratic’ in comparison with the ‘traumatic and authoritarian kind’ (Harvey, 2003a: 1) displayed in adjacent mega-redevelopments in Daan District, such as Daan Park and Huaguang.

Gentrification and revanchist urbanism

It took well over a decade of intensive debate and empirical research before Smith’s (1979) heuristic of the rent gap became broadly accepted as a key mechanism underlying processes of gentrification in a wide variety of contexts. After nearly two decades of less debate and empirical research, his ‘deeply suggestive heuristic’ (MacLeod, 2002: 616) of the revanchist city remains a challenging perspective. Most importantly, it challenges revanchist urban politics by bringing driving forces into view, from behind the veil of ‘populist language of civic morality, family values and neighbourhood security’ (Smith, 1996: 211). But it also remains a challenging perspective in terms of grasping its multifarious manifestations and delineating its relevance in the current geo-histories of cities around the world. For it makes as little sense to assume the perspective is relevant only to New York, where Smith detailed its cruel consequences, as it would to assume ‘that revanchism is a defining feature of all cities undergoing gentrification’ (Slater, 2004: 1209).

Long considered a marginal phenomenon, limited to the inner areas of certain North American and European cities, gentrification has been found to take place in a wide variety of contexts (Atkinson and Bridge, 2005; Lees et al., 2008; Lees et al., 2014). The shift from urban managerialism to urban entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989) aligned with neoliberal urban politics has been variously institutionalised around the world. It should not surprise us then to find that revanchist urbanism – associated with neoliberalism, social polarisation and gentrification – manifests itself far from Giuliani’s New York City. Travelling policy and homogenised perception of inter-city competition lend reason to this expectation, as do research findings in Europe (e.g. Belina and Helms, 2003; Lund Hansen, 2006; MacLeod, 2002), South America (Swanson, 2007), and Asia (e.g. Dupont, 2011; Michel, 2010; Whitehead, 2008).

Revanchist urbanism has become so strongly associated with gentrification that some perceive weakened vigilance of critical thought, allowing ‘symptomatic readings and evocation’ to ‘substitute for systematic analysis’ (Amin and Thrift, 2002: 5), while others express concern over ‘the uncritical acceptance of contemporary gentrification as a consummate expression of revanchism’ (Slater, 2004: 1209). The historical geographies of gentrification and revanchism are neither so contingently determined that theoretical ties between them are precluded, nor so uniform that all instances fit neatly into a singular revanchist urbanism framework. While revanchism is not a defining feature of all gentrification, gentrification is a significant feature of all cities where revanchist urbanism shapes urban politics. Following Lees (2000), some progress has been made in mapping the geographies of gentrification and neoliberal urban policies. Echoing Lees (2012), we suggest that mapping geographies of revanchist urbanism through comparative urbanism remains an important research agenda. In pursuing this agenda there are two opposing simplifications to avoid: assuming that any trace of neoliberal urban politics or gentrification implies revanchist urbanism (the universalising tendency), and mistaking revanchist urbanism (the abstract) for manifestations in New York (the concrete) – a highly limiting approach resembling early views of gentrification as limited to concrete characteristics found in London by Ruth Glass.

Another misleading notion is that revanchist urbanism necessarily involves vengeful sentiments of individual gentrifiers, politicians, developers or financiers. Brown-Saracino for instance sees in the gentrification literature a monolithic, iconic view of gentrifiers as ‘ruthless invader[s]’ who ‘wholeheartedly support total transformation’ in the interest of ‘clear-cutting the wilderness’ (2009: 10, 19). A useful parallel is found in Jessop’s critique of the World Report on the Urban Future, in which he notes that the report’s ‘fit’ with the neoliberal project does not mean:

that its principal authors, the commissioners, their professional, academic, and lay consultants, or the principal speakers at the Urban21 conference are necessarily conscious agents of neoliberalism in either its initial ‘red in tooth and claw’ version or its current ‘Third Way’ variant. Some may be; others are not. More important for my purposes is how this document implicitly endorses neoliberalism in the ways it describes recent economic and political changes, ascribes responsibility for them, and prescribes solutions for the problems they create. In this sense it is a deeply ideological document. (2002: 465–466)

Similarly, Mirowski (2012: 286) argues that ‘tangible direct evidence of intention to defraud on the part of the impresario is not a necessary precondition for the existence of a Ponzi scheme.’ Likewise, we suggest that revanchism does not imply wholesale revenge on the part of agents of gentrification. Rather, the concerted ways urban ‘problems’ are described, responsibilities for them ascribed, and solutions prescribed, together characterise revanchist urbanism. Revanchism cannot be reduced to an aggregation of revenge among individuals. It is an ideology that propagates discourses legitimating ‘renewal’ (dispossession) of urban space by utilising images of malevolent criminal elements (dispossessed), thereby cultivating a sense of collective (class) righteousness in the ‘desire to regain’ (Morris, 1976: 1111) the place spotted for recapture and reinvestment, as investors capture large rent gaps.

If the relation between revanchist urbanism and gentrification is stronger in one direction, the relation between neoliberalism and revanchist urbanism is more intrinsically meshed and mutually constitutive. Revanchism is ‘in every respect the ugly cultural politics of neoliberal globalization’ (Smith, 1998: 10), and constitutes a ‘distinctly neoliberal recipe’ for capital accumulation (Hubbard, 2004: 670). Revanchist urbanism is part and parcel of contemporary neoliberalism, as gentrification has become a major instrument of neoliberal urbanism for securing capital accumulation and attracting capital investment in increasingly uneven and unstable spatial fixes (Smith, 2002).

Neoliberalism has expanded globally and established itself as a hegemonic mode of political thought during the last four decades, led by finance capital, propagated by the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, and provided practical exemplars in Pinochet’s Chile, Reagan’s United States, Thatcher’s United Kingdom, Deng Xiaoping’s China, and now also Reinfeldt’s Sweden (Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Harvey, 2005; Hedin et al., 2012; The Economist, 2013). In this context, and given growing insights into variegated capitalism (Jessop, 2011) and variegated neoliberalisation (Brenner et al., 2010), the project of thinking through comparative urbanism (Lees, 2012) appears especially important.

Strands of revanchist urbanism

Revanchism ‘blends revenge with reaction’ (Smith, 1998: 1): reaction against the successes of social democracy, the welfare state and socially responsible urban policy during the middle half of the twentieth century, and revenge against the malefactors held responsible for urban decay and the supposed ‘theft’ of the city. The revanchist ethos:

encompasses a whole raft of state policies that are wedded to a neoliberal anti-welfare ideology and, amid the heightened insecurities of the new economy and risk society, a purported ‘compassion fatigue’ on the part of the middle class vis-à-vis the plight of the dispossessed. (MacLeod and Ward, 2002: 163)

Like neoliberalism, it ‘comes with a considerable emphasis on the nexus of production and finance capital at the expense of questions of social reproduction’ (Smith, 2002: 435).

In an analysis of management of public spaces in Scotland, Atkinson (2003) usefully breaks down revanchist urbanism into four strands. This allows for a more nuanced approach in empirical investigations into revanchism in a variety of political, institutional and cultural contexts. Atkinson focuses on manifestations of revanchism in the management of public space, but the strands he identifies are relevant to the broader fields of urban development. The four strands are: a mode of governance, a set of programmes, a prophetic and dystopian image, and a reference to economic objectives.

We adopt this framework and modify it to our understanding of revanchism. To dystopian image we add a utopian image as central to revanchism. Revanchism owes its success at least as much to what Baeten calls revanchist utopianism as it does to the flip-side dystopian image of urban malaise. Baeten argues that neoliberalism as revanchist utopianism is a project of ‘reclaiming utopia in capitalist terms’ (2002: 151). We also adjust the order to better correspond to the flow of energies involved: economic objectives, for which mode of governance is reconstituted and a set of programmes implemented, legitimated by dystopian and utopian images.

Economic objectives emphasise production over reproduction, business over people, and the guiding principle of attracting footloose capital, seen to secure success in achieving the utopian city. Re-engineering mode of governance opens up for corporations to command political life and increases degrees of freedom for local authorities to act in coercive ways. A set of programmes is institutionalised to perform the above strands. A dystopian image of urban malaise and distress is promulgated, from which vengeful policies may act as an ameliorative, accompanied by a utopian image of a clean, secure, wealthy, tension-free and, above all, free-market city.

Positioning Taipei: Neoliberalisation in an East Asian developmental city

Taiwan is commonly considered one of the second tier ‘East Asian tigers’, along with South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, followed by third tier tigers such as Malaysia, Thailand, China and Vietnam. Following Japan’s lead in achieving rapid economic growth through state-led development, Taiwan and South Korea drew upon infrastructural and institutional capacities built up during Japanese colonial rule. Contextually path-dependent histories render the developmental state as variegated as the welfare state and the neoliberalisation of both forms of state. Park et al. (2012: 22) point out that all East Asian developmental states ‘have implemented spatially selective liberalization policies in recent years … and increased marketization of urban spaces.’

Since 1987, when nearly four decades of martial law was repealed, Taiwan has undergone democratisation, with the first direct presidential election held in 1996. The coinciding of democratisation and neoliberalisation complicates simplified notions of travelling policy, as some significant changes in Taiwanese politics such as devolution and decentralisation derive from both processes (Jou et al., 2009). Some characteristics of Taiwanese society distinguish it from other East Asian developmental states. Compared to South Korea and Japan, for instance, the social welfare system is based on relatively high state expenditures and is less geared to the East Asian social security model centred on family and company. Furthermore, while ‘local government in the developmental state tends to be an extension of the central government’ (Park et al., 2012: 21), this is less pronounced in the relationship between the Taipei city government and Taiwan national government, especially after democratisation (Jou et al., 2012).

Like Shanghai (Wang, 2011) and Beijing (Shin, 2009a), Taipei local government is characterised by entrepreneurialism, orchestrating property-led redevelopment in partnership with finance and real estate capital, and, as in Seoul (Shin, 2009b), driven by property-based interests. The state remains a powerful actor in these schemes, however, as many large-scale redevelopments occur on state-owned land. Wholesale redevelopment of informal settlements on state-owned land is another element of Taipei’s recent history, comparable to Seoul (Shin, 2008, 2009b). Unlike Seoul, however, and much unlike Singapore (Park, 1998), displacement is more vicious: options of rehousing in public flats or cash compensation are not the rule. However contingent and path-dependent the historical geographies and politics of other East Asian developmental cities, most share with Taipei recent histories of large-scale urban redevelopment schemes on state-owned land associated with neoliberalisation of urban politics and economic restructuring.

Urban redevelopment in Taipei

Taipei’s shift in economic base to services and high-tech industry is associated with three megaprojects along the east side of the central city: the Neihu Technology Park, the Nangang Economy and Trade Park and the Xinyi Planning District (Chou, 2005; Jou et al., 2012). The western part of the city, developed during Taipei’s rapid industrialisation from the 1960s to 1980s, remains the economic core of the city and the cultural and administrative centre of the country. This area has also undergone considerable transformation. The Taipei Railway Station Special District, for instance, is considered a masterpiece of Taipei’s urban regeneration (Jou et al., 2012). Characterised by mixed residential and commercial land use with vibrant urban life, the escalation of real estate prices fuelled by privatisation of state-owned properties has spurred commercial and residential gentrification and social exclusion associated with redevelopment.

The oldest administrative district in Wanhua, among the poorest parts of the city, is unsurprisingly targeted for urban renewal. Many of the remaining inner city neighbourhoods are affluent and environmentally attractive, with an abundance of historically and culturally valuable buildings, institutions and activities. Some places such as the socially mixed and politically progressive Yongkang–Qingtian–Wenzhou area have recently undergone gentrification, with escalating housing costs and construction of luxury apartments.

The replacement of socially heterogeneous and mixed land-use areas with more socially homogeneous housing and uniformly commercial areas is a general recent trend in East Asian cities, also in Taipei (Huang, 1997; Jou, 1999). The historical legacy of Japanese housing followed by two waves of migration contributed to the formation of socially mixed neighbourhoods with mixed land-use. Inadequate housing provision for the masses of political migrants from mainland China in the 1940s and rural–urban migrants during the 1960s and 1970s led to a high share of informal housing on state-owned land (roughly one third of Taipei’s population in 1964; Chen and Li, 2012).

These informal settlements were accepted by authorities as a solution to the rapid increase in population and needs for housing provision. Public utilities and services were commonly provided and paid for by residents. With property taxation and formal deeds on buildings, the only aspect rendering relevance to the term ‘squatter settlement’ is that there were no formal contracts regarding land rights. Tolerated by the KMT (Kuomintang) regime as a passive housing policy, these settlements have become the main targets for mega-redevelopment projects since the 1990s, among others the aforementioned Daan Park and Huaguang.

Parallel to informal housing there arose a sizeable informal street economy in Taipei, the recent history of which displays one dimension of neoliberalisation of urban politics and revanchist urbanism. Street vending became a common profession for the poor, similarly tolerated by the KMT regime as a passive labour market policy. During the 1970s, the growth of street vendors, night markets and related small-scale manufacturing came increasingly to be seen as a problem for traffic, urban hygiene, public order and safety, as well as a threat to the formal economy. Public debate drawing on under-class imagery promoted the dystopian view of street vendors as ‘malignant tumours’ to be seriously dealt with (Tai, 1994; Yu, 1999). Prohibition of street vending in the 1980s had little effect, so policy shifted towards formal institutionalisation, spatial concentration and discipline of night markets and street vending. Since the 1990s, night markets have become major tourist attractions, while street vending has largely vanished under criminalisation and the rhetoric of revanchist urbanism.

Neoliberal discourses have legitimated national and municipal reforms since the 1990s, including housing, land, and urban redevelopment policies and practices, opening opportunities for speculation in land and the built environment. The state assumed the role of creating new arenas for markets and facilitating the market mechanism for housing provision, while significantly reducing its already minor responsibility for providing affordable housing. Public housing construction was reduced in the 1990s and has ceased since 2000 (Chen, 2005). Taiwan’s public housing policy had long been geared to benefit government staff, military personnel and teachers (who consequently tended to support KMT) rather than people in need.

Privatisation of public property since the late 1980s played a critical role in stimulating speculation in land and housing and in re-directing the spatial development of Taipei (Jou et al., 2012). Large tracts of public land were privatised in connection with the aforementioned megaprojects, which remain arenas of real estate intrigue and speculation, monopolised by large corporate groups (Jou, 2005).

Though legal restrictions on the press and political activities remained, the lifting of martial law in 1987 facilitated mobilisation of opposition. A popular housing movement, Citizen Solidarity against Urban Speculation (also called Snails without Shells), gathered some hundred thousand citizens to occupy Chunghsiao East Road in August 1989 to protest escalating housing costs and demand affordable housing. This did not, however, deter privatisation of public property, which continued through transitions of national and municipal governments and remains the norm to this day. The policy of selling public land and developing under public–private partnership was normalised during the 1990s. Neoliberalisation continued unabated after the Democratic Progress Party (DPP) won national elections over KMT in 1998, and indeed intensified in terms of financial liberalisation and telecommunications deregulation.

The National Property Management Committee was founded by the Executive Yuan (executive branch of government headed by the president and cabinet ministers) in 2002 to promote efficiency in the management of national assets. From 2001 to 2005, the national government sold 2374 hectares of land (of which 356 were in Taipei) for NT$219.5 billion in revenue, accounting for 2.2% to 5.3% of annual state revenue. Sales were only marginally affected, if at all, by severe public criticism of the government for serving the interests of corporate capital. In January 2010 the Executive Yuan announced a moratorium on sales of land exceeding 500 pings (1650 square metres). This drove speculation on the limited remaining ‘opportunities’ to new levels. One plot of land nearby Daan Park set a new record for highest square metre price among national land sales (Chang, 2010).

Since the end of the 1980s, the highest price of national land purchase in Taipei city has been a barometer for land values. During the 1990s and until 2004, the highest prices were for properties in the Xinyi centre. Since then, however, the highest prices have been for properties in the old city centre nearby Daan Park. The auction of public property plays a significant role in fuelling the market. One property (0.8 hectare) east of Daan Park was sold in 2006 to Shin Kong Life Insurance, the second largest financial corporation in Taiwan, for NT$6.4 billion, and resold two years later to the largest financial corporation, Cathay Life Insurance, for a profit of nearly NT$3.8 billion (Chang, 2010). During the last decade, the Daan District has accounted for 12% of total area of public property sales in Taipei, but 24% of total revenue. Not surprisingly then, the Daan District constitutes the new frontier of gentrification in Taipei. Although regular elections have consistently put national and city government under critique for the expansion of neoliberal policies and ineffective measures to control real estate speculation, there are no clear signs of any movement away from neoliberalisation, selling off urban commons to corporate capital, and associated corruption.

Gentrification of Yongkang, Qingtian and Wenzhou

Located between the two major business districts and adjacent to Daan Park and Taipei’s two largest universities, the Yongkang, Qingtian and Wenzhou neighbourhoods in the heart of Daan District include the most prestigious public schools in Taipei, attractive green spaces, and many cultural heritage sites including Japanese style houses and churches of various faiths (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Location of Yongkang, Qingtian, Wenzhou and Huaguang.

The Yongkang neighbourhood became famous for opening the floodgates of public participation in planning in the mid-1990s. In order to relieve traffic congestion after completion of Daan Park, Taipei Municipal Government decided in 1995 to widen a road passing through the Yongkang neighbourhood, linking two main arteries. Grassroots protests against the plan successfully mobilised residents and planning professionals to cancel the road project and instead conduct a participatory design for the park (Huang, 2005). The participatory design process revealed conflicts and cleavages in the community among residents, shoppers, street vendors and planning professionals, especially with regard to sidewalk space (Kuo, 2005). Demands for social and environmental ‘order’ and ‘cleanliness’ in the neighbourhood and along the shopping street led to eviction of street vendors. Street vendors, community grocery stores and curb-side restaurants have since been largely replaced by boutiques, gourmet restaurants and coffee shops. Yonkong Street is now a popular site for international tourists, and is highly promoted by city government as a characteristic business district. Ironically, the showcase of participatory democracy in community planning spawned displacement and social exclusion in the wake of commercial and residential gentrification.

Qingtian is promoted by city government and realtors as the ‘emerald’ of Taipei City, with grand old trees, many old Japanese style houses and, increasingly, luxury apartment buildings. Many residents are university faculty or civil servants. In the early 2000s, preservation of old trees and historical buildings was promoted by environmental activists, planning professionals and residents in or near the neighbourhood in protest against National Taiwan University’s plan to demolish traditional Japanese-style faculty housing for redevelopment, and the cutting of old trees by private landlords. This movement was partly successful as Taipei City Government passed the Taipei City Tree Protection Bylaw in 2003, and later designated four cultural heritage sites and six historical buildings in the neighbourhood. In addition, a detailed plan for Qingtian Street Preservation Special District was announced in 2007 by city government to preserve the morphology and cultural character of the area. However, prior to this plan some luxury apartments with record-high housing prices were built via the mechanisms of national land sales and transfer of development rights from other parts of Taipei. Under pressure from private landlords, the plan was revised in 2011 to relax restrictions on private property, reflecting the dysfunction of institutions for cultural preservation and the power of landed developer interests. Ecological and cultural preservation has been achieved, only to be commodified to the benefit of developers and property owners.

The extension of power in private property rights results in social exclusion of non-owner-occupiers in social reproduction, such as the school system. An example is the prestigious public bilingual primary school, Xinsheng Elementary School, adjacent to and built in conjunction with Daan Park. Clearing the site for the school involved eviction of a squatter settlement of 65 housing units. Enrolment to the school prioritises descendants of owner-occupiers, including children and grandchildren, a unique arrangement among public schools where enrolment is based on duration of residence regardless of housing tenure.

Wenzhou is the daily life extension of NTU campus, with its atmosphere of college town. Divided by Xinhai Road, most NTU faculty apartments are located to the north. In the southern part, faculty housing in both apartment buildings and old Japanese structures are scattered among private apartment buildings. The neighbourhood has about as much public housing as faculty housing. The mix of faculty housing, public housing and private housing make the area relatively socially mixed.

Wenzhou is known for its grassroots landmarks. The Wisteria Teahouse occupies a central position in the political culture of Taipei, being formally designated a historical site by city government in celebration of the spirit of political dissent. Progressive and environmental NGOs, independent bookstores, underground bands and social enterprises, are concentrated in the southern part of the neighbourhood. Commercialisation of cultural space is swiftly transforming the area, the Eslite bookstore becoming a new landmark in the area, as exotic cafés, bars and restaurants blend with chain brands, replacing old and modest tea shops, food stalls and small traditional restaurants. Located at a major gateway to downtown Taipei, it is currently one of the ‘hotspots’ of urban ‘regeneration’ as city government promotes its programme of ‘Taipei Beautification’.

Gentrification and revanchist urbanism in Daan District

If gentrification is ‘a change in the population of land-users such that the new users are of a higher socio-economic status than the previous users, together with an associated reinvestment of fixed capital’ (Clark, 2005: 258), then the Yongkang–Qingtian–Wenzhou area has gentrified. Here gentrification proceeded in a more piecemeal process than in those parts of Daan District subjected to wholesale mega-redevelopment projects, such as the monumental spaces of Daan Park and the planned Taipei Roppongi in Huaguang. With a considerable presence of middle and upper classes already prior to Daan Park and surrounding mega-redevelopments, these neighbourhoods have undergone a gentler, less traumatic process of gentrification (cf. Larsen and Lund Hansen, 2008). Other areas in the Daan District remain pockets of poverty and scattered squatter settlements, characterised by rent-seeking finance capital as ‘underutilised land’, ‘opportunities ripe for picking’, most notably the on-going large-scale redevelopment of Huaguang. Once a socially mixed district, Daan has become increasingly homogenous. Compared with all other districts in Taipei, Daan has the highest share of population in the highest quintile of income and the lowest share of population in the lowest quintile (Taipei City Statistical Yearbook, 2010).

Gentrification progressed through three waves. The first two waves occurred in the early and late 1990s, most clearly associated with massive evictions for the realisation of Daan Park. High-end ‘residencies’ were built along the main streets adjacent to Daan Park, initially clustered near the intersection of Xinyi Road and Xinsheng South Road at the northwest corner of the park. Commodification of the park amenity took place through skyrocketing costs of nearby housing.

The third wave in the mid-2000s saw new luxurious apartment buildings erected in the interior of neighbourhoods adjacent to Daan Park, including Yongkang, Qingtian and Wenzhou, praised for the successes of residents and activists to forge participatory planning to preserve community parks, old trees and historical buildings (Chuang, 2005; Huang, 2005; Tso, 2006). The gentrification process in this wave is related to the commodification of cultural and historical heritage and environmental qualities. These three waves are evident in statistics on construction permits, which peaked in the early and late 1990s and again in the mid-2000s.

The Huaguang Community is one of many ‘informal’ settlements in Taipei that arose on state-owned land under conditions of rapid urbanisation and inadequate provision of housing. These were commonly formalised in that public services were provided and properties were registered and taxed. As John Liu, professor of urban planning and director of the National Taiwan University Building and Planning Research Foundation, put it: ‘It shouldn’t be called a squatter settlement. Rather, it is a type of urban dwelling developed in a specific historical context’ (cited in Ho, 2013b: 12). In 2006, residents found themselves categorised by the Ministry of Justice as ‘illegal occupants’, with new legal Principles for the Disposal of Occupied National Public Use Real-Estate Managed by Administrative Authorities, allowing the government to file civil suits to remove the newly re-defined ‘squatters’. ‘Having paid taxes and been provided with electricity, running water and official residency registration … for all their lives, the residents suddenly found themselves considered to be illegal squatters and defendants in court’ (Ho, 2013a: 12). Residents have been slapped with stiff fines (including five years’ retroactive ‘rent’), some in excess of NT$6 million, their bank accounts frozen, one-third of their meagre salaries seized, and have been forced to demolish their homes and businesses, or pay exorbitantly to have it done (Lin, 2013). One 72-year-old woman died of shock the same day she tore down the soya milk shop that had been her livelihood for over 50 years (Ho, 2013a).

With no rehousing programme, it is no exaggeration to describe the process as a ‘brutal’ (Lin, 2013) example of domicide (Porteous and Smith, 2001; Shao, 2013) and root shock (Fullilove, 2005). Given the economic objectives, mode of governance, set of programmes and the dystopian imagery of criminal ‘squatters’ and utopian imagery of ‘world-class neighborhood’ (Executive Yuan, 2013), we argue this is also an example of revanchist urbanism in Taipei.

Revanchist urbanism in Taipei

During the last two decades, the ‘imperative’ of global competitiveness in aspiring to global city status shifted economic objectives from emphasising ‘use-value/object-oriented’ investments in improving conditions of living and working in a place, towards ‘exchange-value/“investor”-oriented’ speculative rent-seeking in the political economy of space (Sayer, 2013: 171). These shifts in economic objectives were facilitated by deregulation of the Taiwanese stock market in the mid-1990s, and entrenched in the 2002 WTO accession under threat from the US (Harvey, 2003b; Wang, 2004). Massive investments in infrastructure and megaprojects reflect the shift in economic objectives, which is also evident in social polarisation. Taiwan’s Gini coefficient went from 0.28 in 1980 to 0.31 in 1990, and 0.33 in 2000, and has remained stable at around 0.35 since 2002 (Executive Yuan, 2012).

The ‘imperative’ of global competitiveness in aspiring to global city status moved Taipei’s mode of governance from managerialism to entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989; Wang, 2004). Neoliberalisation of urban governance was substantially instituted with the 1993 Taipei City Urban Renewal Act, encouraging private sector participation in urban renewal projects, and the 1994 Statute for Encouragement of Private Participation in Transportation (Jou, 1999; Jou et al., 2012). Private participation in infrastructure (PPI) and public–private partnership, the ‘centrepiece’ of the new entrepreneurialism, became entrenched as the standard mode of governance with the construction of Taipei Financial Center in Xinyi, approved by the first elected mayor Chen Shui-bian.

The public part of this partnership consists more of selling-off public property than deep democratic control over forming the city. This ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey, 2003b) – dispossessing people of urban space and institutional commons – is facilitated and sanctioned by a series of amendments to the National Property Act between 1992 and 2003. Privatising public property to vitalise the economy and enhance rational use of land has been declared by national and city government to benefit the whole city, evidence and protests to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Taipei Beautification Project, instigated in 2009 by the Urban Regeneration Office, is a set of programmes, including Regenerating the Urban Environment and Decreasing the Number of Obsolete Buildings (programme 2) and Turning Vacant Lots into Green Public Space (programme 6), which allows property owners to receive bonuses of floor-space in inner-city areas in return for letting the city turn the lot into green space during the interim before redevelopment. Programmes encouraging public–private partnerships involve urban renewal projects, cultural heritage sites and public works and services, spurring commercial gentrification and commodification of public space. Not without contestation, the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs privatised management of Wisteria Teahouse soon after its designation as historical building. Another example is the programme Urban Colourful Makeup Movement launched by the Department of Cultural Affairs to promote the idea of new uses for old buildings, in which a historical building in Qingtian neighbourhood was designated a cultural heritage site, subsequently winning a gold medal in the category of commercial architecture, ‘The 2011 Old Buildings, New Life Award’. This commodification of cultural heritage sustains the ideology of privatisation of public assets (Chen and Jou, 2011; Huang, 2001; Yu, 2008).

The commodification of public space is also reflected in the cultural programme of Adaptive City and Taipei’s bid to compete for the 2016 World Design Capital. Yongkang, Qingtian and Wenzhou are anchoring spots for two of eleven ‘creative zones’ in Taipei geared to enhance ‘creative city transformation’: Yongkang, Qingtian and Longquan Streets, and WenRawTing Block. Both are famous tourist sites and clusters of small design shops. Aesthetics and imagery of alley culture and street life have been vigorously advocated in Taipei, the Yongkang–Qingtian–Wenzhou area promoted by city government as a prominent showcase.

Dystopian and utopian imagery has long been put to use in legitimating large-scale urban renewal projects in Taipei. The squatter settlements that were evicted and demolished to make space for the city’s ‘new lung’, Daan Park, have been called ‘malignant tumours’ since the 1960s (Huang, 1997; Jou, 1999; Shih, 1967). Under mayor after mayor, upper-echelon civil servants and media used this rhetoric until the ‘successful tumour operation’ shifted focus to other places. With its combination of dystopian and utopian rhetoric and the images of recapturing and rebirth, the following passages from an information booklet distributed by the city government are emblematic of revanchist urbanism:

The roads were unsafe and dirty and had been taken over by street vendors. … disorder, an obsolete infrastructure and transients … increased crowdedness, filth and poor security. … glory gradually faded … recover their past glory … once again, beautiful … recaptured its original beauty … the rebirth of the community. (Taipei City Government, 2005)

This continued in discourses issuing from city government for launching the Taipei Beautification Project in 2009, in preparation for the mega-event Taipei International Flora Exposition 2010, aiming to increase the city’s global visibility and competitiveness. A recent analysis highlights dystopian images of obsolete old shanties, dilapidated facades, dangerous dark corners, ugly signboards and desolate lots, in contrast to utopian images of landmark buildings, international design standards, lights, artistic ornamentations, landscaping and gardening, unifying and ordering (Chen, 2012).

Conclusion

That the Yongkang–Qingtian–Wenzhou area and Daan District have gentrified over the last two decades is not in itself evidence of neoliberalism or revanchist urbanism in Taipei. Their location in the core of a rapidly urbanising capital(ist) city make gentrification highly expected, especially given the context of rapid urbanisation and massive investments in new urban centres impacting on the potential land rents of the area. Half a century of gentrification research reveals this to be a process with myriad forms, not all of which are necessarily the outcome of neoliberalism or associated with revanchist urbanism. Our analysis suggests however that marked political shifts in Taiwan and Taipei characterised by the signposts of neoliberalism – privatisation, deregulation, marketisation and individualisation (Bourdieu, 1998; Larner, 2009) – have driven this process.

We have sought to chart manifestations of Atkinson’s four strands of revanchist urbanism: economic objectives of rent-seeking, competitiveness and attracting capital; a specific mode of governance opening up for corporations to command political life; a set of programmes designed to perform these elements; and dystopian/utopian images ideologically fuelling while normalising revanchism. We find evidence of these strands in the recent history of Taipei, Daan District and the Yongkang–Qingtian–Wenzhou area. Our conclusion is that urban life, urban politics and urban development in Taipei during the last two decades have, to a considerable extent, been formed by revanchist urbanism. This supports Smith’s (2002: 442) claim that the revanchist city is ‘not just a New York phenomenon’ and MacLeod’s (2002: 617) assertion that Smith’s ‘revanchist framework offers a powerful conceptual heuristic beyond Manhattan’. This is not an argument that revanchist urbanism is ‘universally applicable’ (Cloke et al., 2010: 9). But we argue that the concepts of gentrification and revanchist urbanism are apposite to understanding recent processes of urban restructuring in Taipei.

The Yangkong–Qingtian–Wenzhou district was home to many politically formative, emancipatory, and progressive movements, including democratisation (e.g. Wisteria Teahouse and underground bookstores), the right to affordable housing (e.g. Snails Without Shells and the Organization of Urban Reforms), environmental justice and stewardship (e.g. Taiwan Environmental Protection Union), and radical community associations. The irony is that these movements contributed to paving the way for gentrification. The commodifying forces of finance and property capital usurped the emancipatory programmes and democratising forces, effectively capturing the public cultural and environmental assets these movements with varying degrees of success had maintained and enhanced. The area became a ‘hotspot’ for gentrification and enormous transfers of wealth. The recent history of these neighbourhoods brings us to conclude that unless democratising forces are able to tame the singular principal power of landed developer interests (Harvey, 2010), effectively claiming the right to the city (Lefebvre, 1996; Purcell, 2008), the successes of progressive movements, be they environmental, cultural, social or economic, will be valorised through the mechanisms of property markets: those who created the values in urban space will be displaced, dispossessed, the values accumulated by the architects of neoliberal urban politics – finance and real estate capital.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge our gratitude to Hyun Bang Shin, Loretta Lees, Ernesto Lopez-Morales and three anonymous reviewers for helpful critique of drafts. Thanks also to the organisers and participants of seminars and conferences in London (Toward an Emerging Geography of Gentrification in the Global South), Taipei (Globalization and Urban Dynamics in Asia: Taiwanese and French Perspectives), and Newcastle (Revenge and Renewal: Revanchist Urbanism and City Transformation), where earlier drafts have been discussed.

Funding

The National Science Council of Taiwan provided funding for research and guest professorship.

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