The Research of City-County Consolidation and People Intentions - an Empirical Study on the Cases of Tainan

Abstract

This study uses the case of Tainan City, the old city typical of Taiwan history and culture, to explore, by questionnaire survey, the people's anticipation for and feeling about the changes of ten effects of city-county consolidation and their satisfaction with 17 aspects of municipal governance before and after the consolidation. The study also investigates the variation of influences by the personal traits of the subjects. The research found that the items of improvement anticipated by the subjects for the city-county consolidation focused on the overall development of the city. Less priority was given to the anticipated improvement on the items of actual service to the individual. That matches the vision as the theme of policy marketing by the local government when it was making the city-county consolidation happen, and is identical to the items of improvement which the people were satisfied with after the consolidation as well. It indicates that the policy marketing by the local government in making city-county consolidation happen with the vision creation as the object instead of setting administrative reform as the theme did better in gaining people's recognition for the city-county consolidation policy and made it smooth for the government to lead the execution of the consolidation. In addition, almost seventy percent of the subjects thought after the consolidation that the city-county consolidation had no significant effect on the improvement of governance. In summary, it was found in the case herein that the creation of vision for the consolidation as the theme of policy marketing during the process of administrative zone consolidation did successfully gain people's recognition for the realization of the vision and idea. However, the overall decline of satisfaction with the aspects of governance after the consolidation and people's disappointment with urban construction, traffic convenience and administrative efficiency indicate that the increase of governance efficacy soon after consolidation not being recognized by people is relevant. Yet, there may be other external factors, for instance, the timing of survey was too close to the consolidation or the replacement of the administrative team.