History

Minsheng community is the first American model community in Taipei, Taiwan. The current population of the community is over fifty thousand. In 1967, Taipei City Mayor Mr. Kao, Yu-Shu carried out an urban developing plan to develop the city towards the east end. He requested the central government a US assisted loan of US$5 million to set up a project for land consolidation and joint development to make the suburb area of one hundred and ten hectares into a modern residential area accommodating forty five thousand people.

The community ranges eastward to Jilong River—the closest road now is Tayou Road–, westward to Dunhua N. Road, southward to the linking line of Yanshou Street and Lane 199 Dunhua N. Road and northward to the Songshan Airport. The total area is 29,846 square kilometers. The administrative district includes ten villages which are Jingzhong Village, Dongchang Village, Jieshou Village, Dongrong Village, Sanmin Village, Futai Village, Fujin Village, Xindong Village, Xinyi Village, and Zhuangjing Village, and two sub-division covering across Dongshe and Sanmin within the Songshan District.

Community Development

The community is well-equipped with public facilities, such as post offices, banks swimming pools, tennis courts, baseball fields, parking lots and the first sewage treatment plant in Taiwan since 1970. Moreover, the Minshen Activity Center which had eleven stories and three stories of basement was built in 1992. The building equipped with facilities such as Taipei City Bank or the latter Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank, Taipei Municipal Library Sanmin branch, the community classrooms, a gym, and etc. Supported by the sub-division heads of the community, Mr. Ou, Ching-Hsiug and over thirty community residents initiated Minsheng Community Development Association Taipei in 1993. The association organizes diverse courses such as arts, crafts studies, and sport activities. Furthermore, they advanced environment protection, eco-life and community beautifying works on the cooperation of the municipal government.

Community Landscape

The Minsheng Community is centered at Minsheng traffic circle located at the intersection of Sanmin Road and Minsheng E. Road. There are twenty five parks in various sizes within the community. The green view accounts for one tenth of the community area. The streets are planned in grid network. The sidewalk trees and median trees along each street have made the whole community a flourishing scene. At the beginning of the community planning, the electric wires were put underground so that there were no utility poles in the community and the streets were thereby widened. But when the cable TV rose in the early nineties, a large number of wires were wound on the street lamps. The scenes of the community were gradually improved until the municipal government carried out a program to manage the wire breakouts of the cable TV providers.

The originally preserved four to five meter wide space between buildings were planned to let the garbage truck to drive directly into the aisles to clean and transport the waste. Due to the living behavior of Taiwanese people, the back streets never functioned as they were meant to be. In stead, they became the dusty corners of the community and a lot of foul water, garbage and violating parking and constructions emerged. In June 2006, Mr. Chen, Chi-Yung, the head of the Songshan District, carried out a reformation program to transform back streets into gardens, and reconstruct the emergency escape lanes to improve the back street spaces. Since the Minsheng community neighbored the Songshan Airport, the height of the buildings was limited for the safety of the flights. Therefore, the Minsheng community unlike the counterparts of the urban jungle shows no oppressive feeling within the entire community area.

Humanities accomplishment in the community

There are currently twenty thousand three hundred households in the Minsheng Community. The male and female populations are about twenty six thousand and twenty nine thousand, respectively. The average member of each family is about three people. According to the size of population in this community, there are some public schools established including two public junior high schools, Taipei Municipal JieShou Junior High School and Taipei Municipal Minshen Junior High School；and six public elementary schools, Taipei Municipal Minzu Elementary School, Taipei Municipal Minshen Elementary School, Taipei Municipal Min Quan Primary School, Taipei Municipal Minquan Elementary School, Taipei SongShan Primary School, Taipei Municipal San Min Elementary School and On the fringes of the community, there is the first open campus elementary school in Taipei, Taipei Municipal Minquan Elementary School, and a community senior high school, Taipei Municipal Xisong Senior High School. The abundant educational resources provide convenience to the pupils in the community to go to schools and exercise. The residents of the community as well can take advantage of the campuses to participate in various leisure activities.

Both the living standard and the level of education of the community residents are higher than the average. There are also many cram schools, daycare centers, after school talent classes in the community spreading on Fujin Street–between Xinzhong St. and Xindong St., and Yahshou Street—between Ln.80 Sec. 4 Minshen E. Rd. and Samin Rd. Besides, there are two branches of Taipei Municipal Library in the community. The Minsheng branch was built on the 17th Dec, 1983 and located on the 4th and 5th floors at No.5 Ln. 199 Dunhua N. Road. The collection of books features education of children and parenting. The Samin branch was built later in 1993 and located on the 5th and 6th floors of the Minsheng Activity Center building. The main book collection features fine arts. The latest information on fine art is provided in addition to a collection of the fine art related books, video and audio documents.

Living Circle of the Community

The living circle of the Minsheng Community is centered at Minsheng traffic circle, located at the intersection of Sanmin Road and Minshen E. Road. The main stores, the Minsheng Activity Center building, the local police station, post offices, a gas station, movie theaters, markets and shops all surround the center. The shops and residences are scattering on the main streets including Minshen E. Road, Samin Road, Xinzhong Street, Fuyuan Street , Xindong Street and Minquan E. Road. The types of stores cover all aspects of living necessities including food, clothing, housing, transportation, education, recreation, medication, and financing. The integrity of the shop categories enables the life even richer and diverse in the community.