Taiwan Today

A recent survey by a local magazine found four metropolises and an outlying islet to be the "happiest" cities and counties in the nation. According to the Sept. 24 issue of the CommonWealth magazine, the happiest city in Taiwan is Taipei City, followed by Hsinchu City, Tainan City, Taichung City and Penghu County. The "happy city survey" evaluated 23 cities and counties in Taiwan and its outlying islets in five aspects: economic power, environmental protection, local government efficiency, education and social welfare. The Taipei-based, Chinese-language biweekly has conducted this survey on an annual basis since 2003. The survey is the first using "sustainable happy city" as its theme. Top four of the first five happiest cities are commercial and industrialized cities. However, Penghu County, the least populated of the 23 cities and counties, managed to rank fifth. One place that made the most progress over the past year is Taipei County, catapulting from 21st to 13th. Kaohsiung City did pretty well, too, advancing from 13th place to seventh. In the aspect of economic power, Hsinchu City, where the high-tech industry-clad Hsinchu Science Park is located, ranks first because it has the highest saving rate per household and 38.4 percent of its citizens believe that it is easy to find a job in the next three years. The top 10 of the environmental protection category are mostly offshore or agricultural areas with Hualien County, Penghu County and Kaohsiung City ranking as the top three. Hsinchu City ranked at the top in government efficiency. The survey found that nearly 70 percent of its residents believe that the city government is very efficient. The other four of the top fives are Taoyuan County, Penghu County, Taichung City and Taipei City. Regarding education, Taipei City ranks first, followed by Hsinchu City, Taipei County, Taoyuan County and Taichung City. Taipei City enjoys the richest education resources in the nation. In Hsinchu City, 59 percent of residents believe the mayor cares a lot about education for the young, while Taoyuan County invested the nation's highest percentage of its budget in education, science and culture, at 46.69 percent. On social welfare, Chiayi City and Hualien County pay the most attention to social welfare among the 23 surveyed. Last year, Chiayi City Mayor Huang Ming-hui integrated the resources of Chiayi physicians' association, pharmacists' association, and two major regional hospitals to offer extensive health check-ups, set up a community pharmacy service network and offered pneumonia vaccinations to the elderly, the magazine reported. Hualien County, on the other hand, budgeted for children's welfare in addition to carrying out their welfare policy designated by the central government. The annual survey was conducted between July 18 and Aug. 14, with a sample of 10,225 residents islandwide. Confidence level was 95 percent with a sampling error of between 4.7 percent and 5 percent.