Taipei: The World's Most Underrated City?

[CalUrbanist]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It still does kind of feel like a bit of a peripheral place. It's not a cowtown, of course, but it's not very cosmopolitan and it is the primary city for Taiwanese people, not a place where people from far away come to try out new things.

I don't quite get these comments about Taipei being uncosmopolitan. If Taipei were an American city, it would be more cosmopolitan than all American cities save for probably NY, SF, LA. Cosmopolitanism isn't all about having a 37% foreign-born population. It's about being at the crossroads of culture and ideas. If foreign-born ratio or immigrant-share were a good gauge of cosmopolitanism (which it is not) then we'd be forced to put Houston above Tokyo or Seoul. Surely this is not what forumers are implying?

Speaking of ideas, with the demise of a democratic HK, Taipei is now the center of the world for Chinese intellectual free speech and all of the things that go with that - publishing, media, think tanks, etc. No surprise Taipei is capital of the only Asian country to date (barring ANZ) that has legalized gay marriage, and where public discourse about trans rights is occurring in tandem with the most liberal cities of the West.

[veep]

Originally Posted by CalUrbanist

I don't quite get these comments about Taipei being uncosmopolitan. If Taipei were an American city, it would be more cosmopolitan than all American cities save for probably NY, SF, LA. Cosmopolitanism isn't all about having a 37% foreign-born population. It's about being at the crossroads of culture and ideas. If foreign-born ratio or immigrant-share were a good gauge of cosmopolitanism (which it is not) then we'd be forced to put Houston above Tokyo or Seoul. Surely this is not what forumers are implying?

It seems like a weird surrogate, but retail also says a lot about a city's exposure to the world. The fact that Taipeiites (is that what we call them?) are savvy enough to justify standalone A.P.C. and Naim Audio boutiques tells me Taipei is a pretty cosmopolitan city. In the US, only SF, NY, LA have have enough people of discerning taste to justify these. No to mention Taipei's representation in the Michelin Guide as a global culinary capital.

In my experience, Taipeiites are very globally mobile. According to Knight Frank Taipei has the 8th largest UHNWI count in the world, above cities like Zurich, Shanghai, and all US cities not called New York.

Houston is absolutely more cosmopolitan than Tokyo or Seoul. Cosmopolitanism is defined by cultural diversity, not the amount of rich pricks a city has.