CHANGING ECONOMIC DRIVING FORCE OF CITIES COMPETITIVENESS: THE DEVELOPING CAPACITY OF SECONDARY CITIES IN TAIWAN

摘要

The greater cities can get more political resource, the better reputation they had from mass media. The secondary cities usually hold less population, economic market scale and job opportunities providing than the largest one. They generally aggressively find the driving force of economic growth and attract foreign investment in order to catch up the top largest cities achievement. This study adopts economics, social, and environmental factors, which follow the primary criteria of global urban competitiveness comparison, to analyze economic driving force within the secondary cities in Taiwan. The capacity of secondary cities appears decaying trend, as Kaohsiung City, lack of strong economic driving force. FDI effectiveness has been reduced since 2003 year in those secondary cities of Taiwan. In recent years, Taiwanese government also offered much incentive to attract foreign enterprises’ direct investment. But when incentive disappeared, then foreign firms or enterprises mostly chose leaving to other south-eastern countries for cost down. Globalization trend makes secondary cities should re-consider self-competitiveness. Continuous relying on central or local governmental resource is hard to survive for secondary cities. According to the Taiwanese secondary cities cases, the study found five municipal divisions, mentioned as New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung, being unnecessary to be divided into five parts. Integrating nearby cities could make good effect on economic growth.