Van Gogh's paintings enter the streets of Taipei: What constitutes the city in the eyes of politicians?

Van Gogh's paintings entered the streets of Taipei, unexpectedly raising a question for the year-end election campaign: What does a city consist of in the eyes of politicians? This also puts the DPP's slogan of "the new generation will carry the new era" this year into a test that transcends age.

The Democratic Progressive Party's National Congress in July reviewed the local governance signatures of Su Zhenchang, Chen Ju, Hsieh Chang-ting, You Xikun, Chen Dingnan and others, emphasizing the inheritance from generation to generation. However, in addition to inheriting the basic political skills of visiting the grassroots, shaking hands and requesting requests, what different problem awareness and governance methods can the new generation come up with? If "new" only means biological age, the generational differences will soon lose their meaning when faced with Jiang Wanan, who also has a youthful image.

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What’s interesting is that what these candidates do is actually very “old-school”, including markets, temple entrances, and symposiums. The real difference is not who travels more frequently, but what you see after entering the grassroots level. As for New Taipei City, Li Sichuan focused on his skilled administrative experience and appealed to succeed Hou Youyi and continue stable governance; Su Qiaohui started from mountain and sea towns such as Ruifang, connecting local running points to transportation, medical and tourism facilities, shouting that "New Taipei no longer needs to be a satellite city of Taipei", trying to reshape the development subjectivity of each of the 29 districts.

The Chiang Wanan City Government has paired Van Gogh's works with twenty landscapes to reinterpret Taipei through foreign art. However, it inevitably raises questions. Can this kind of symbolic collage bring people into the history and life of the city itself, or is it just a superficial policy packaging? In contrast, Shen Boyang advocated connecting the cafes painted by Van Gogh to Polly Road, using "The Potato Eaters" to reflect the miners and laborers painted by Hong Ruilin. He also used street soap boxes to dismantle the pain points of people's livelihood, such as childcare, renting, nutritious lunches and transportation, and pieced together the daily life of citizens.

In Taoyuan City, Zhang Shanzheng has long been building a professional image with his background as a scientist and government official, and his discussion focuses on hardware construction and industrial blueprints; Huang Shijie initiated policy discussions in the 13 districts, and reversely absorbed scattered needs such as local transportation, daycare, education, and long-term care into policy prototypes, and further integrated the bus road network and medical resources into an integrated regional governance plan.

If public opinion ultimately only stops at vote-seeking, petitioning, and casework services, no matter how diligent the grassroots itinerary is, it will ultimately just copy the existing election technology. Only when scattered life experiences are re-identified and sorted out, policies are formed and resources are reallocated, will "locality" be transformed from a mere election scene into the starting point of governance.

When Van Gogh painted "The Potato Eaters", he did not intend to depict an ordinary dinner, but to allow the viewer to see the rough hands that reached for the dinner plate and turned over the soil, and to see the full picture of labor and life. The same is true for politics. The meaning of the "new generation" is not just to put on young faces, but to be able to understand the city and propose ways to change it. Putting these grassroots practices back into the DPP's plan for this year, "the new generation will carry the new era" will have the weight to stand up to the test.