Beginning on March 4, earth-movers plowed into the area marked out for parks 14 and 15, on the corner of Nanking East Road and Linsen North Road. The illegally built residences and the Japanese graves on the location passed into history as work began to turn the area into a green, open park.

But the suicide of an old veteran caused many people to wonder whether, in implementing this long-postponed urban renewal plan, social justice was not neglected.

Before the demolition began, the area demarcated for the number 14 and 15 parks was the city's largest zone of illegal structures. 966 households of squatters were removed, about 30% of whom are elderly and infirm, most of those being retired veterans. But, after four or five decades there, the number of old veterans has dwindled, and many new residents have encamped there, turning Linsen North Road into a street of tiny shops.

This run-down area, though a community to its residents, has been seen as a "tumor on the city" by a series of Taipei mayors. But because many of the squatters have been old, infirm, and poor, city councilors have sympathized with them, and the area has never been cleared. The demolition plan, first formalized a decade ago, has thus been delayed all this time. However, new mayor Chen Shui-bian concluded that it's better to get the pain over with for the long-term betterment of the city as a whole. Taipei is, after all, densely populated, and open, green space is increasingly to be valued. Moreover, the mayor does not want to be seen as someone who just "talks a good game" but does nothing when it comes to hard choices about improving the city and enforcing the law. Thus he adopted a firm attitude and proceeded with the demolition.

A week before demolition began, old veteran Chai Suo-hsiang hung himself, shocking everyone.

According to Huang Sun-chuan, a graduate student in the Institute of Building and Planning (IBP) at National Taiwan University who has been studying the site for two years, the city did not make fully adequate arrangements for the old and infirm among the displaced squatters. Planning for the park, he says, has been shoddy. Thus, when residents of the zone united to protest against the city government, they were joined by the chairman of the IBP, Pi Heng-ta, as well as by professor Hsia Chu-chiu.

NTU students and professors devoted themselves to this effort in order to save what they saw as "the only place with a neighborhood feeling in this modern city." They organized the "Alliance to Resist City Government Earth-Movers," protested against Mayor Chen's "crushing the people," criticized Taipei as "a cemetery for the poor," declared that "parks eat people," and urged delay of the demolition.

Unable to get agreement from the city government, on March 4, the day demolition was to begin, NTU students and teachers, as well as Ma Ying-jeou, tapped to be the next Kuomintang candidate for Taipei mayor, joined the squatters to defend their homes. Some city councilors and legislators from all three main political parties showed up to lend moral support, as the intensity level at the site-now imbued with the flavor of a political standoff-peaked.

However, demolition still went ahead, ending the situation. The voices of some of Taipei's poorest and weakest were given great attention for a time, but how did it end up? How can we reconcile improvement of the city and the interests of the poor?

Hsia Chu-chiu argues that the recent demolition was on a pattern from 30 years ago. Currently, he says, advanced nations have changed the way they do urban renewal, allowing the poor and weak to stay in the area, rather than sweeping them away. Vice-mayor Chen Shih-meng and Taipei Social Affairs Bureau director Chen Chu, on the other hand, repeatedly stressed that the city "only began demolition after making appropriate arrangements."

Urban improvement is an endless task for a city. Let us hope that in future our political leaders can learn from experience when the next such decision is necessary.

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The day before demolition was to begin on squatters' homes at the site of the planned number 14 and 15 parks, the residents, mostly poor, left with their few belongings, presenting a poignant scene. Can a more humanitarian middle way be found between the desires of the middle class for a better city and the interests of the poor? (photo by Diago Chiu)