average 
moment
I guess I was right in being suspicious of western urbanists who were always deafeningly silent on massive projects in China but won’t shut up for weeks about the Dutch king taking a bike-shaped shit. This is how they respond when they are forcibly confronted with the topic.
One thing I’ve noticed is that a noticeable chunk of the “urbanism subculture” is very hostile to anything that deviates from “traditional-style development”, which gets extended to architectural styles. It’s definitely a result of the space being dominated by Americans that lionise Europe and Europeans themselves.
It’s like a mix of traditionalism and a “small is beautiful” mindset. Also heaps of chauvinism.
I also think OP shouldn’t have drawn a comparison between Taiwan and (the rest of) China. For one, Taiwan also has high-speed rail and a good metro system in Taipei, and two the size difference is huge, Taiwan would never come close in terms of quantity lol. Plus they opened themselved up to dismissals because “muh freedoms”
Edit: apparently the original post is about cars in Taiwan with darkened windshields.
It’s a logical continuation of the early 20th century Petit-Bourgeois Americans’ worship of Europe as a beacon of sophistication. The idea of Europe as a shining city on a hill continues to occupy a central position on the minds of similarly situated Americans today, including the segments that consider themselves urbanists. And they’ll be caught dead in a ditch before they cede any of that ground to the
Far East.
Thinking about that Borealism post from a week or so ago, that really helped fully illuminate some things for me
I agree, even pre-edit. Even if the post was originally about Taiwan I think it was a deliberately inflammatory approach, there really wasn’t a need to bring up sovereignty there and it was 100% going to ensure people were not receptive. Gotta identify the right time