Taipei’s residents involved in urban regeneration

From the early 2000s onwards, the Taipei Urban Regeneration Office works to preserve the urban patrimony, with a special focus on the city centre’s historical buildings. In 2010, the “Urban Regeneration Stations” project goes beyond a mere rehabilitation, as it includes the buildings’ owners and residents in the process of regeneration of their neighbourhood.

The old Dihua commercial street is an interesting illustration of this phenomenon, the South China Morning Post reports. Built in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries by Fujianese traders and colonial merchants from Japan, the houses of this street had become forgotten as they were also far from the city’s new shopping centre. Now, the street has finally been restored by the owners. Today it is once more dynamic. The Taipei residents visit it a lot, as they become more and more interested in their own architectural heritage.