No abstract

The resilience of industry has caught much attention since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the literature argues that spatial concentration is beneficial to industrial development, but few reports discuss its impact on industrial survival from a long-term perspective, namely resilience. Therefore, this study tries to answer whether spatial patterns impact the long-term survival performance of the industry through investigating the longevity of production sites. We take the semiconductor industry in the Hsinchu area, Taiwan as a case study and hypothesize that the survival period of production sites in clustered areas is longer than that in non-clustered areas. After conducting the research, it was found that the survival period of production sites in clustered areas is not always longer than non-clustered areas. Our results show that only larger clusters and those with higher degrees of clustering might have advantages toward longer survival, rather than the number of average-sized clusters. Our research pioneers in the field of sustainability by bridging spatial studies and industrial resilience theories. As it explores the resilience of an influential industry in the world, its outputs provide new suggestions for future industrial planning, resource distribution and regional development.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the industry immensely and, in some cases, irreversibly. This research pioneers in studying how the pandemic have influenced the survival and spatial distribution of the health-related manufacturing industry (HRMI) in Taiwan. Eight categories of HRMI are examined, with their change in survival performances and spatial concentration between 2018 and 2020. Average Nearest Neighbour and Local Indicators of Spatial Association are conducted, to visualise the distribution of industrial clusters. We found the pandemic did not shock the HRMI in Taiwan, but actually induced its growth and spatial concentration to a certain extent. Additionally, due to it being a knowledge-intensive industry, the HRMI mainly concentrate in metropolitan areas with which universities and science parks may have largely supported. However, the spatial concentration and cluster scope growth do not necessarily accompany the improvement of spatial survival, which may be resulted from the different life cycle stages an industry category is in. This research fills in the gap of medical studies with literatures and data from the field of spatial studies. It provides interdisciplinary insights under the condition of pandemic.

As a developmental state, Taiwan had a unique institutional system managing industrial land development, which brought rapid economic growth before 1990. But the system gradually initiated conflicts and slowed down industrial development speed, which moved into a period when industrial, environmental and social sectors distrusted and impeded each other. Taiwan’s government commenced with an institutional transformation and adjusted central government’s position to improve sustainability. A new spatial planning structure was built as a departmental negotiation platform in 2016; and the economic authority raised its policy document ‘Industrial Land Policy White Papers’ in correspondence to bridge the connections vertically and horizontally. This article analyzes the development of Taiwan’s industrial land use policy after the 1960s and argues that the policy has been affected as the change of society. The research therefore concludes three stages during the period from the perspective of historical institutionalism, and argues the current stage which resulted from the introduction of National Spatial Plan may lead to a more sustainable industrial use policy. The departmental policy document, Industrial Land Policy White Paper, constructs the new power structure which reveals the institutional legacy of departmental state strategy. Meanwhile, as a forerunner, Taiwan’s experience could provide an example for younger developmental states in easing the conflicts in democratization and industrial development.

In this article, a brief introduction of the industrial development in Taiwan will be elaborated first. Then it will discuss the conflicts between industrial development and urbanization through the case of Kaohsiung City. The transformation of modern developmental state makes central government less power to dominate industry. Thus, the new development mode and relationships among society, local and central government should to be rebuilt in the future.