It's just past dusk and the crowds are getting bigger at Huashan
1914 Creative Park, a distillery-turned-arts-hub in the heart of
Taiwan's capital.  Couples drift out of an exhibition of
Pulitzer Prize-winning photography, while families gather at
Alleycat's Pizza. In Café Lumière, named after a 2003 film by
Hou Hsiao-hsien, students order cappuccinos before heading over
to the adjoining art-house cinema.  The compound's spacious lawn
is filled with city dwellers enjoying the warm evening with
their four-legged friends. "A lot of the times, there are more
dogs than people," Lee Chang-Fang, the director of Huashan 1914,
told me with a smile.  In most major Asian cities, this scene
wouldn't be taking place. A well-connected developer would have
snapped up the 7-hectare parcel of land that makes up Huashan,
valued at $1 billion, and erected a mall or condominium block.
Welcome to the new Taipei. Other Asian cities might compete on
building the flashiest skyscrapers or glitziest shopping center.
But the Taiwanes