Before setting foot on Yangchoukeng Forest Trail (羊稠坑森林步道), you should know three things.
When I arrived in Taoyuan City’s Lujhu District (蘆竹), I had an inkling of the first, came prepared for the second, and was fortunate in that the third made no difference to me.
First of all, if you come here to escape from the bustle of civilization, you’ll very quickly realize you’ve come to the wrong place. The non-stop drone of freeway traffic is punctuated by the rumbling whoosh of trains on the high-speed railway (HSR) and the occasional roar of a plane taking off from Taoyuan International
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Rapid urban renewal an ugly thing
By Lu Ching-fu 呂清夫
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that Taipei is ugly, that it can no longer compare with the most advanced cities in China and, therefore, it is time for the city to speed up its urban renewal.
Would urban renewal solve the ugliness problem? Urban renewal in Taiwan is only about replacing old buildings with new ones or applying to build new skyscrapers, but it is not certain that these buildings would be better.
As for the ugliness, old structures are sometimes prettier than new ones: Zhongshan Bridge, which was dismantled in 2002, is just one example. What is missing is a landscape law, but a proposed bill has little to say about regulating the aesthetics of buildings.
Environmental Impact Assessment: The importance of throwing shade
Trees and parks benefit the mental health of city dwellers, yet Taiwan’s large cities aren’t doing enough to ensure that they are cared for properly and everyone has access to them
By Steven Crook / Contributing reporter
It’s official: Trees are good for the mental health of city dwellers.
According to a study published in Scientific Reports at the end of last year, individuals living within 100m of a high density of street trees in Leipzig, Germany, were prescribed antidepressant prescriptions at a lower rate than those who didn’t have many trees in their neighborhood.