I can't speak to the history of Taipei specifically, I did visit for a month (loved it) and I currently live in the center of a different Asian megalopolis.
I can say a lot of these places became what they are by bulldozing a lot of medium-density shophouses and destroying a lot of local businesses and tightly knit communities that most people including myself would consider really charming places to live.
They replaced them with places where far fewer people can afford a space large enough to raise kids comfortably and where everyone around you is a stranger.
Now I enjoy the big dense city lifestyle, I like the awesome public transit, I like the massive selection of businesses and services and basically everything, but it's not for everyone and I couldn't see myself raising a family in the middle of it, which eventually if you want your country's population to not collapse, you need people to do somewhere.
I think also considering some of the massive redevelopments that have happened in Asia over the years, you would see massive pushback in the US from essentially an individual rights point of view if you were to try to do that.
It feels like it needs to have the right mix of transit to make it work.
Wife and I both agreed that we preferred Kaohsiung to Taipei if we were to live in Taiwan. With the HSR, it would be about the equivalent of my commute from Princeton to NYC.
I can say a lot of these places became what they are by bulldozing a lot of medium-density shophouses and destroying a lot of local businesses and tightly knit communities that most people including myself would consider really charming places to live.
They replaced them with places where far fewer people can afford a space large enough to raise kids comfortably and where everyone around you is a stranger.
Now I enjoy the big dense city lifestyle, I like the awesome public transit, I like the massive selection of businesses and services and basically everything, but it's not for everyone and I couldn't see myself raising a family in the middle of it, which eventually if you want your country's population to not collapse, you need people to do somewhere.
I think also considering some of the massive redevelopments that have happened in Asia over the years, you would see massive pushback in the US from essentially an individual rights point of view if you were to try to do that.