The Jiang Wei-shuei Memorial Freeway runs through the Syueshan Tunnel and reduces the distance between Yilan and Taipei to less than an hour. Once a quiet and pretty backwater that was hard to reach, Yilan is now a potential dormitory city for the capital. "The increasing flow of resources and people between Yilan and Taipei has already started a new game in the greater Taipei area," says Chen Yu-chen, chief of the Yilan office of the National Taiwan University Building and Planning Research Foundation.
Yilan City and the surrounding Lanyang plain have been fortunate in their physical isolation to escape Taiwan's industrial development and the environmental devastation it has visited on the west coast. The area lies in the triangle of low rolling land bound by the east coast, the Snow Mountains and the Central Mountain Range. Its natural barricades of stone and sea make it one of the last bits of unspoiled fertile land on the island. But such splendid isolation has left the region with low employment and incomes and an economy reliant on agriculture and fishing, so people view the Taipei-Yilan expressway with much anticipation.
The End of Isolation
According to a survey conducted by the Charlie Chen Foundation (CCF) about three months before the new road opened in June this year, more than 65 percent of Yilan inhabitants thought that the transport link would help close the gap between living standards at home and in Taipei, as well as enhance cultural diversity in the region. "There are people, especially conservationists, who worry about cultural homogenization," says Wu Chung-chun, associate professor at National Ilan University's Department of Economics. "But some Yilan people, especially the younger generations, look favorably on the end of isolation."
The region's distance from the developed western plains, however, may inadvertently be its competitive edge. Chen Yu-chen points out that while some places did not develop as quickly as others and became somewhat marginalized, such as the eastern and southern parts of Taiwan, Yilan can confidently position itself to exploit a new relationship with the land in this post-industrial age. "The future Yilan is not intended to satisfy the nostalgia of city-dwellers," she says, "but must develop under its own steam."
Yilan has a reputation for independent action. In 1982, Yilan constituents elected the first non-Kuomintang (KMT) county magistrate in Chen Ding-nan, who successfully campaigned against the construction of Formosa Plastics Group's sixth naphtha cracker plant during his second term in the late 1980s.
The region has actively pursued a policy of sustainability in the development of tourism. The Dongshan River is noted for its user-friendly bank-side park, where the annual International Children's Folklore and Folkgame Festival has taken place since its inception in 1996. Attracting more than 500,000 foreign and domestic visitors every year, the festival has become the most popular and profitable event organized by a local government. The Yilan Green Exposition of local plants and agricultural products has been held each spring since 2000 and generates a great deal of tourist revenue. In recent years, Yilan has seen some of the fastest growth in hotels and homestay facilities in Taiwan.
It is expected that the Taipei-Yilan expressway will bring in even more tourists. According to the Yilan County Government's Accounting and Statistics Office, in the month after the highway's opening, visits to the seven major public sightseeing spots, including the Dongshan River Park, increased from 611,547 last year to 768,609 in 2006. Excluding the Wulao Mountain Stream scenic area that became an additional venue for the folklore festival in July and August this year, there was a 3.9 percent rise in total visits from last year.
Wu Chung-chun points out that while the figures are not so impressive, the impact of the new expressway on local tourism might not be realistically reflected in official statistics because they do not take into account the number of visitors to privately run sites. The fishing port of Nanfangao, for example, lies near one of the new expressway's exits and has seen a sudden influx of tourists over recent months. Together with the rapid dissemination of information on the Internet about the area, the highway can unexpectedly deliver long lines of people in front of famous food shops.
Local View
The wave of people, mostly from Taipei, display attitudes that have alerted people like Chang Chieh-long, principal of the Yilan Community University, to metropolitan snobbery. "We must be aware of the Taipei-centered view of cultural or economic development," he says. The CCF's survey also showed that 46 percent of Yilan residents worry that the new route might lead to changes in the natural landscape.
Chang points out that the mission of community universities is to cultivate a local perspective of civic affairs. His school was established in 2000 through the joint efforts of the county government and nonprofit organizations such as the Youngsun Culture and Education Foundation and the Chilin Education Foundation. Youngsun was founded by Yu Shyi-kun, former magistrate of Yilan County and incumbent chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while Chilin was set up by Lin I-hsiung, a former DPP chairman, who also founded the Nuke-4 Referendum Initiative Association, which seeks to put the issue of nuclear power to a national referendum.
Dongshan River Park (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
Yilan has developed some of the nation's most active civic groups since the Cabinet-level Council for Cultural Affairs launched community development projects in the mid-1990s. Formed at around that time by several professors at National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, Chen Yu-chen's group has kept an eye on the construction of the Taipei-Yilan expressway from the beginning. "Now that the road has been completed," she says, "we're facing a brand new challenge from its potential effects."
The Secret of Happiness
Chen Yu-chen's group has been working to encourage public involvement in local affairs and providing professional advice on civic issues. The group is now conducting a research and survey project of rural Yilan for the county government. Chen says that, among the nearly 250 community development associations, at least 50 are working very hard on their community affairs. She notes that another region with a similarly strong nonprofit sector is Hsinchu City. Coincidentally--or perhaps not, according to a recent survey conducted by Common Wealth magazine, people living in Hsinchu City and Yilan County are happier than those in Taiwan's 20 other counties and cities, but not as content as those in the capital.
Perhaps the secret of Yilan people's happiness is their greater connection to local cultures and traditions and a more creative attitude toward their everyday life. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, for example, Youngsun collaborated with the county government to launch two rounds of housing projects in an effort to move away from the concrete-box home building found around Taiwan and to allow both architects and homeowners to work closely together in designing houses that reflected local climate, culture and inhabitants' needs. Yilan was also the first county in Taiwan to tear down the walls around elementary schools, two of which are public charter schools.
With the new expressway, Yilan needs an even greater injection of creativity to shape a new economic model and lifestyle. According to the CCF poll, more than 70 percent of Yilan residents expect that the new link means more tourist potential for local agriculture and fishing. The Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture's statistics show that in 2005 Yilan's agritourism already accounted for about 23 percent of the county's total production value of NT$7.85 billion (US$237.9 million). And there is still much to be explored in this service-based business sector. "In contrast to manufacturing," Chen Yu-chen says, "the leisure service industry requires less capital and relies heavily on human resources. This has yet to take a definite shape."
Wu Chung-chun points out that the agritourism originally formed in knowledge-intensive economies. "It requires administrative and marketing knowledge of tourists' mindsets and regional characteristics," he says. Lu Kuo-hua, the present county magistrate, says that Yilan's entertainment facilities should try to attract tourists from the central and southern parts of Taiwan to stay overnight in order to create really substantial economic value.
In addition to attracting tourism investment such as the construction of shopping malls, hotels and leisure farms, the county government is seeking to lure advanced technology companies. The planned Yilan annex of the Hsinchu Science Park will concentrate on the development of telecommunication and digital businesses. "Now nearly all businesses that cause high environmental pollution have moved overseas and will not come back," Lu says. "So we can more easily achieve a balance between environmental protection and industrial development, which will be kept within designated areas."
The tunnel is expected to draw homebuyers who work in the northern urban Taiwan area. According to the 2006 Taiwan Real Estate Almanac compiled by the Sinyi Real Estate Research and Development Center at National Chengchi University, in the last three years Yilan's average house prices have risen by 10 to 30 percent and land prices also went up by more than 20 percent. The heat of the property market can also be seen in the increasing number of real estate agencies in Yilan, soaring from 54 in 2003 to 107 by June this year.
The prosperous property market reflects a rosy picture of what the tunnel may bring, but a second look at rural land prices, which some city-dwellers bought with the intention of building bucolic retreats on, reveals a significant drop over the last year. "Few people used to modern urban life can handle being surrounded by farmland," Chen Yu-chen says. She thinks that the real advantage of Yilan lies in the harmonious coexistence of mountains and water and a reasonable spread of well-functioning urban space with identifiable boundaries. "That's what nonprofit groups like us are aiming for," she says.
Interview with the County Magistrate
Having served eight years as the mayor of Yilan City, Lu Kuo-hua, 51, was elected Yilan County magistrate last year, becoming the first head of the county government from the largest opposition party, the Kuomintang, in nearly two and a half decades.
Taiwan Review: What are your expectations of the new freeway?
First of all, the freeway should begin its passenger and then freight transport services as soon as possible after adequate evaluation by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Traffic flow will decrease when more people, such as Yilan residents who work in Taipei, take buses instead of driving their own cars. As for enterprises such as a high-tech company with materials and products to be transported to and from the Taoyuan International Airport, freight service on the freeway would save them considerable transportation costs. Of course the authorities need to consider safety measures, such as prohibiting petroleum tankers in the [Syueshan] tunnel.
What do you think will be the demographic effect?
The population of Yilan is still decreasing, though at a lower rate. Although there are concerns that the increasing numbers of migrants and tourists, as a result of the better transport connections, might have a negative effect on community attitudes and social order, I think Yilan's people are sensible enough to cope. But I do notice an impact from the sudden increase of tourists. Some local products such as fresh seafood have become more and more expensive because tourists are willing to pay higher prices. I am afraid that very soon there will be many local products that only Taipei people can afford.
How will the county government promote agritourism?
Yilan has one of the most prosperous agritourism sectors in Taiwan, its production value accounting for about one fourth of the national total, with its full business potential yet to be explored. You know, there are eight million people living in the Taipei and Taoyuan areas who can visit Yilan. This year, the first agricultural leisure park designed and funded by the central government's Council of Agriculture began operation in Dongshan Township. Also, the county government plans to establish an oceanic affairs bureau to work on the exploration and management of the rich resources along the 110-kilometer coast. We want to draw the ocean closer to people's everyday life. In Taiwan, people tend to see the ocean as nothing but a fishing ground. Among other things, we plan to build yachting marinas in the fishing ports and promote tourist trips to Gueishan Island and to the waters frequently visited by sea mammals.
What do you think of the long-standing debate about environmental protection versus economic development?
There's a stereotypical picture of Yilan as totally concerned with the environment and ecology, and that is something I want to get rid of. There doesn't have to be a clash between environmental concerns and industrial development. Today, a well-preserved natural environment is one of the major factors that attracts investment--high-tech professionals don't want to live in a place that lacks a pleasant living environment. Through attracting investments to Yilan and offering better services to existing local companies, we can help with the central government's efforts to keep the core competitiveness of Taiwanese enterprises in Taiwan.