A Comparative Analysis of City Development of Taipei versus Shanghai

Taipei City is not only the capital but also the center of political and economic development in Taiwan, whose achievements in many fields are leading position than other cities. By comparison, Shanghai is the most important commercial center city in China. In the future, China would be possible to become the largest economy country around the world. The aim of this study is to explore the current developments between Taipei and Shanghai City. Based on OECD’s Regional Better Life Index of architecture, and individual weights adopted by principal component analysis from each fields, this study analyzes eight dimensions including income, job, environment, housing, health, safety, education and service availability between Taipei and Shanghai, and then uses different indicators to peep these two cities’ developing changes and trends in the future. The result of the study indicated that the Taipei City’s Better Life Index was higher than Shanghai’s index. However, the scale infrastructure, city competitiveness, and future development were lagging behind Shanghai, Shanghai''s per capita disposable income in 2026 is expected to exceed Taipei. Therefore, it is necessary for Taiwan to speed up to improve the investment environment so that foreign investments has high willingness to invest Taiwan to enhance Taipei’s economic momentum. Also, by Taipei-Shanghai Twin City Forum, Taipei city needs to continually deepen education, infrastructure and long-term care communications, learn the pros and cons from each other, so that the two cities of talent and goods more quickly migrate around the world, and share resources to create a win-win situation.