"While form too often trumps function in the West, pragmatism is on clear display in Taiwan[...]The structures are all simple reinforced concrete designs withou

"While form too often trumps function in the West, pragmatism is on clear display in Taiwan[...]The structures are all simple reinforced concrete designs without ornamentation, lengthy ramps, wide shoulders, or any other modern features." A great goal but I don't have much hope for it because in the West you'll have to fight on two fronts for this. One is the sort of ground level activism against seemingly anything that resembles construction, and an upper echelon of people who think functional, cheap architecture is a crime against humanity because they want to cosplay as Belle Époque Europeans. The willingness of Taiwan, and also mainland China as they're not different in this regard to just build cheap but with very decent quality and quickly is just completely lost. In most of the Western world people will rather blow 40% of their income on rent than get someone into power who will just build some decent apartment blocks.