Over the past 8 weeks in the planning course 165, the topic that makes the biggest impacted on me was the concepts of urban centralization and decentralization. It reflected my understanding of the general thoughts on urbanization development in the historical concepts between Taiwan and the United States. In the United States, the majority of the people prefer to live their suburban areas with trees or gardens around when they have a chooses or retired. Conversely, in Taiwan, people seem more likely to want to live in central areas that include convenient transportation and health care for their entire life. 

 

What makes the United States’ and Taiwan’s preferences so different? If we observe this phenomenon from the historical and political standpoint, people realized in the 18th and 19th centuries that Taiwan was occupied and traded by China and many countries. One of the reasons the centralized rules were implemented was because in Taiwan, in the early years, the occupation by the Chinese government called for radical change. In order for the military to have better coordination and management for the population, they had to compensate by controlling the resources where people lived. That brought out the mindset that became popular with the citizens because of the perceived elitism of urban life and about how the people who lived in central areas might have more power and higher social status. The unconsciousness of the Taiwanese people impacted, not only the planning of the city but also the majority of the people to decisions about where they lived. So, the people located their houses closer to the center of the city because it meant safer and better lives, this is one of the reasons that “over-urbanization” happens so frequently in most of the cities in Taiwan.

 

In the 19th century, the United States’ world was changing so incredibly fast that the city planning could not actually keep up with the changes of the people’s lifestyle due to the technological growth and the increasing number of populations spread out in different places. Exponential growth in urban populations leads to the problems of the rural-urban divide because rural areas do not have enough funding to reconstruct and renovate their public infrastructure. Look at the history of the United States, I found an interesting phenomenon in the northern area. Is lower and middle class lives in the city and wealthy people and the higher classes establish their exclusive community in the suburban areas.

 

Most of the American cities develop begin from the industrial revolution and temporary warehouse for the workers. After, the business growth around or outside those high pollution industries and residential areas, the population who experience this grow now has the funds to be able to move away from the highly polluted area. Also, those wealthy people live next to each other and after it, up to a certain number they become a community. So, the decentralization phenomenon is generally caused by the environment the youth are exposed to growing up. This also why Americans will more likely to consider suburban areas provides more freedom and a healthier environment away from the violent and crowed situation.

 

In the 20th century in the larger cities in both the United States and Taiwan, what I am seeing in both countries are the younger generation seeking work opportunities in a non-conventional way based on the fact that in the midst of the technological growth. People can success without living in the city areas, as well as information and communications can be easy to access due to the new technology. The biggest difference is on the older generation, in the U.S. people moved out of the city when they retired because of the financial instability and seeking for simplicity on the tranquil lifestyle. But the older generation in Taiwan prefers lives in the city while they retired for Those are part of the reasons that see an incline in urban decentralization in the United States, not only in the cultural aspect but the physical attributes. 

 

Compared to two types of lifestyles that cause urban centralization and decentralization, it was very interesting for me to experience the difference between their decision making and living style. Through this course, I understand the physical planning world never separates from social implications, they are interwind and related to each other. I think the challenge of over-growth population that our society facing are part of the process of natural survival of the fittest. Also, why urban centralization and decentralization attractive me this because the process of people spreading from the urban city is the process of creating new local cultures.