On The Curbs & Commercial Culture of Taipei
On The Curbs & Commercial Culture of Taipei
Learning from Asia Pacific, plus a new webinar on "Delivering Profits"
Yours truly was lucky enough to spend much of the holiday season traveling around the Pacific, returning for the first time since the pre-pandemic days. While part of my travels were in Tokyo; the world is plenty familiar with Japan’s famed culinary options and dining culture, and saying that American cities should try to emulate the nearly 40-million-person metropolis’ awe-inspiring transportation and land use patterns is not only sadly unrealistic, it might be too divergent to even be useful as an example we can learn from.
Instead, let’s point the ol’ urbanist lens at Taipei, the capital of Taiwan and a metropolitan area of 7 to 9 million people (the latter taking an expansive view of the city’s suburbs.) The city is instructive to Americans for a number of reasons, starting with its development history. While many of the world’s transit oriented cities are built around the memory of ancient walls and well-trod commuting patterns, Taipei’s population in 1946 was only 271,754. And while the city experienced rapid growth in the decades after, since the early ‘80s, the city proper has actually experienced a mild population decline, with growth instead happening in the suburbs.
It’s also worth noting that while certain newer neighborhoods have highrises and skyscrapers, most of the city is much more human scaled: four to eight story buildings dot the landscape, in a way that’s similar to much of Europe, albeit with different aesthetics. The street layout is largely inspired by decades of Japanese colonial rules: most residential buildings (often with retail on the bottom) are on quiet side streets where pedestrians mix with bikes, scooters, and cars (although there is usually a painted area demarcating which parts are meant for walking, as opposed to say a Danish woonerf.) The main boulevards are of an almost monumental scale, some even a staggering 300 feet from sidewalk to sidewalk. While that size might make even a Texan blush, the streets are kept livable with ample foliage, miles of dedicated bus lanes, and lively shopping arcades on most of the adjacent buildings.
For many years, the city’s transportation network was almost synonymous with bicycling and moped-ing, and said modes remain prevalent. But while the region may still manufacture much of the world’s micromobility, today at least 40% of Taipei City commuters use public transportation, topping private motoring as the preferred way to get around town. The city only began building its metro network relatively recently, with the first line opening in 1996. Now the city’s network stretches an impressive 95 miles, with another 40 or so miles of metro lines served by other operators in the suburbs. And just to rub it in, dozens of additional track miles are currently under construction.
Because that’s not enough, the city continues to aggressively build bus lanes, is expanding its bikeshare network (which is well used thanks in part to sharing a payment structure with the buses / trains) and has — in a nod to our friends in Medellín and Portland — an aerial gondola serving one hilly neighborhood as well.
All this hasn’t been cheap. Taiwan is a wealthy country (its GDP per capita now outranks Japan and most European nations) and its construction costs reflect that. Newer metro projects are coming in at about $400 million USD per kilometer, with elevated light metro projects a bit more than half that. As a point of comparison, LA’s recent K line (light rail running in a mix of tunneled, elevated, and at-grade sections) cost about $153 million per km, while the heavy rail Purple Line extension has crept from $480M to $857M per km as it moves into later phases. So while America should of course work on cost control, it’s equally true that we should spend more on public transit construction in general.
Commerce on Many Curbs
Taipei is polycentric, with multiple competing business and shopping districts, and retail / offices sometimes found in rather unexpected places. In that way, a walk across the city is more akin to strolling the backstreets of Hollywood or Wilshire Center, Greater Boston’s East Cambridge / Kendall Square, or Seattle’s University District, and less so a march down Midtown Manhattan or Kowloon / Central.
And while it’s fun to encounter a Family Mart, 7-Eleven, or local retailer in every alley comprising said walk, what’s even more delightful is the array of local restaurants and street vendors enlivening the neighborhoods. And when the sun goes down, the food gets even better, thanks to the city’s famed system of night markets. Delightful both from an urbanism perspective (who doesn’t love a dense but orderly queue of shoppers and the governmental effort it takes to keep things sanitary) and as a culinary delight: where else can one get candied-sugar-encased tomatoes, shaved ice, egg + scallion pancake, stinky tofu french fries, and coffin bread within twenty feet of one another?
And for those that don’t feel like venturing out, the city is happy to come to you. The region’s love of micromobility of course extends to food delivery, where workers atop scooters of every shape and size (including the famed Gogoro battery-swapping mopeds) will bring you food from seemingly even the smallest of stands. Opening up Uber Eats (locally the number two to Delivery Hero’s Food Panda) out of curiosity, I saw that diners are treated to an innumerable list of options, whether they’re looking for pizza or pineapple cake.
Looking Back Across the Pacific
The point isn’t that this is all some totally unachievable, alien spectacle. It’s a matter of learning from what works, and managing priorities. On a brief stop in Honolulu, I saw both how that city too has some delightful alleys with great food and pedestrian life, but also way too many unpleasant highways and seemingly an inability to finish its far overbudget rail line. And while certainly some parts of the country may be too low-density to repurpose, many neighborhoods on the coasts could be painlessly reshaped to accommodate both more transit and more street vending / night markets. Imagine if instead of shutting down the enormously popular Avenue 26 night market, the City of LA instead built the infrastructure to allow street vendors to economically thrive. A better world is possible, and we don’t have to look too far to figure out how to build it…
2/7 WEBINAR: DELIVERING PROFITS: NEW CHANNELS FOR GROWING REVENUE & CONNECTING TO CONSUMERS
As 2023 heats up, chefs, restaurateurs and business operators are looking for new ways to grow their audiences and connect with hungry customers. While traditional delivery has proven popular, new options are now popping up that connect kitchens to customers, championing friendlier price points and more sustainable systems. Hear from CookUnity Co-Founder & CEO Mateo Marietti, famed chef John DeLucie (Empire Diner, Ainslie, and more.) EaterClub Founder & CEO Perrin Davidson and moderator Restaurant Dive's Julie Littman in this pivotal discussion.
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
Serve’s up! Looks like PDDs are catching a new wave: Insider’s Nancy Luna chats with Serve CEO Ali Kashani about plans to take the Slurpee slingers nationwide, after testing out its 7-Eleven partnership LA (H/T to Matt Newberg for being the first to spy this news, as always!)
Still hungry to hire: Big tech may be shedding jobs, but big food looks to be gorging on growth. Chipotle is looking for 15,000 new workers, while Sprinkles is hoping to add 100 new franchise units. On the less cheery side, Waymo cut some robotaxi developers, while HelloFresh looks to be pressuring European employees to resign (trying to get around severance laws?) And take a look at some of the ways once high-flying startups are getting creative to avoid a dreaded down round.
Big Apple’s big hole: It only took 60 years, but New York City’s East Side Access is finally open in limited capacity. While lots of local media was celebrating “ooh - shiny new toy,” Vice’s Aaron Gordon rightfully takes the project to task for costing a whopping $12.5 billion dollars, saving commuters essentially no time, and accomplishing something that the MTA could have more or less done by simply coordinating its own internal sub-agencies better. With federal funding drying up, transit agencies are going to need to ensure every dollar spent delivers real value to riders, lest once vaunted networks end up in a state of decay (as seems to sadly be the case in Mexico City these days.)
Speaking of money: Amsterdam just wrapped up construction on a $65 million *underwater* bike parking garage. I guess that beats throwing them in a canal…
You say Zomatoe, I say Zomatoh! India’s delivery juggurnaut Zomato looks to relaunch and rebrand its 10-minute delivery service. I gotta say, the current name — “Zomato Instant” — at least makes the value proposition a bit clearer than some of the other bygone names in the industry.
The battle for big and bulky: While the delivery apps of the world have been breaking into big and bulky as of late, legacy freighters aren’t taking the competition sitting down: FedEx just announced an enhanced return service for bulky ecommerce items, offering coverage for almost the entire U.S. population. Meanwhile, smaller logistics firms are nipping at FedEx and UPS’ heels, as the big two crank up rates for run of the mill shipping.
Did you see our latest partner update? Check out the latest crop of amazing organizations joining us in March. Hope you will too! And speaking of our exciting partners - check out this delicious Businessweek profile on Stellar Pizza, this map of cities without parking mandates from our friends at Parking Reform Network, and if you’re a city - consider applying to Automotus’ Commercial Curb Challenge.
Hot new grocery model: Massachusetts’ Addie tests out “pickup only” grocery stores, hopes to expand to 2,000 locations.
Curb news: Automotus heads to Toronto, Populus to Oakland. And on the econometrics side - new data shows parking permits lower rent, while curbside dining grows businesses.
Late links: Chili’s learns “the neighborhood” can’t be delivered. Nvidia puts PDD tech in baby strollers, and messes with chickens. Hong Kong street vendors in peril. Vanmoof hemorrhages cash; fake meet bleeds… fake blood and real cash. Nashville learns from Denver’s ebike rebate program. Are SPACs back?
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew