Abstract
This study is to explore south-eastern Asian migrant workers’ impacts and their influential factors of gathering/consumption activities on divided cities in Tainan City, Kaohsiung City and Taichung City. We will take on an empirical study in the cities’ commercial area or shopping street in three cities. Three major research methods are applied, including questionnaire survey, participant observation and regression analysis. Data will be obtained from the questionnaire answers of local inhabitants and analysed via SPSS10.3 statistical methods. The main outcomes of this study are as follows: 1) In Tainan City, Kaohsiung City and Taichung City, we have found that the partitioning of urban space has begun to become. Among this, the outcome of Taichung City is much stronger than that of the two other cities. 2) In the impacts of migrant workers’ gathering on commercial streets, community inhabitants also have more tolerant attitude than shop keepers. The community inhabitants of Taichung City have more hostile than those of the two other cities. 3) In comparison of South-eastern Asian migrant workers’ gathering in urban commercial area and its relations between the partitioning of urban space, from the viewpoint of local inhabitants, we have found different influential factors among Tainan City, Kaohsiung City and Taichung City. We can say that these factors will be valid predictable variables on divided cities resulted from migrant workers’ gathering/consumption activities in the paper. In the meantime, we can obtain these influential factors among these three cities through two variables: 1) community inhabitants’ socio-economic attributes and 2) community inhabitants’ responses to migrant workers’ gathering/consumption activities in commercial area. Basically we can find these influential factors among the paper which are the same as the Netherlands and Singapore, and not the same as Guangzhou, China.
Highlights
According to the statistic data of Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training, from at the end of September, 2011, it is indicated that the total amount of migrant workers in Taiwan and Fukien area is 417,844, including Tainan City with 30,237 people, Kaohsiung city with 30,394 people, and Taichung city with 56,374 people. (These three cities that are mentioned above are after merger upgraded to municipalities)
3) In comparison of South-eastern Asian migrant workers’ gathering in urban commercial area and its relations between the partitioning of urban space, from the viewpoint of local inhabitants, we have found different influential factors among Tainan City, Kaohsiung City and Taichung City
It’s quite different from Peter Marcuse’s (2002) study which focuses on how the “Ghetto” area in the US formed “divided cities”; and Ronald van Kempen (2002) in the Netherlands, using “segregation index, SI” “to prove so-called partitioned cities” have become more obvious with time and have developed rapidly. Comparing it with our research method, it is completely different. Even though this survey didn’t use the “segregation index, SI” to prove the degree of urban space partitioning in Tainan City, Kaohsiung City and Taichung City, it still has similarities with Brenda Yeoh and Shirlena Huang’s (1998) studies about the subjects, which are strategies and types thereof of housework female migrant worker in public spaces in Singapore and it is found that the phenomena of “divided cities” −especially for the gathering and all kinds of consumption activities in shopping malls like “Lucky Plaza”
Summary
According to the statistic data of Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training, from at the end of September, 2011, it is indicated that the total amount of migrant workers in Taiwan and Fukien area is 417,844, including Tainan City with 30,237 people, Kaohsiung city with 30,394 people, and Taichung city with 56,374 people. (These three cities that are mentioned above are after merger upgraded to municipalities). The effects on the migrant workers versus the spatial development of commercial communities and the changes of the space axis are really interesting and have significant academic meanings for the researches of metropolitan spaces. In other foreign countries, the empirical researches, which relate to the ideas of “Divided Cities”, are more exuberant and complete, but less direct to the factors of the space division of cities. In Taiwan, most of the empirical researches are concerning the distribution of the gatherings and consumption activities of migrant workers in the cities, as well as the aspects of socialized spaces. To explore from community residents’ points of view, how migrant workers from Southeast Asia’s gathering cause an effect on urban space division is the characteristic of this paper, and the research motivation of this paper
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