the busses are free for residents, and the county government hands out various welfare subsidies. This might be the wealthiest (or perhaps second wealthiest after Taipei) local government in the country on a per capita basis. Kinmen is also undergoing a population boom, at least on paper. During the military era, the best way to travel between Kinmen and Taiwan was on military ships, and the military didn’t always have extra space. Residents moved to Taiwan and were stuck there. There was a particularly large community in Zhonghe, in Taipei County, where the Kinmen county government actually built some public housing units for its citizens. With the economic boom, many people have moved back to Kinmen to invest in the booming real estate market or to take advantageold, pre-2010 Kaohsiung City is roughly the same size and population as Xiamen island. If you add together the old Kaohsiung County (except the three mountain districts) plus the old Tainan City (but not the old Tainan County), those are roughly equivalent in area and population to the parts of Xiamen City across the on the mainland. That is a very big metro area, and the wealthiest and most densely populated parts are right on the coast. Now imagine that there is an island three kilometers off the shore of Kaohsiung City that is exactly the same size as (the old) Kaohsiung City, and this island is not densely populated at all. If you could build a bridge, that island would immediately become extremely valuable land. Perhaps wealthy