As the car crosses Tongmeng Rd., the pale pink petals of the orchid tree blossoms greet the summer breeze gently caressing the riverbank.

Traffic along this road almost entirely moves at a snail's pace. No one's in a hurry, because this is the end of their journey.

Off to the right, beyond the lush vegetation, is the east bank of Love River; to the left, a suspension bridge is sheltered among the rolling hills.

Not long ago, this area was a wasteland of factories and abandoned buildings. Today it is the site of Jhong Du Wetland Park, winner of the 2012 International Real Estate Federation Prix d'Excellence – something of an architectural "Oscar" – in the Environmental (Conservation/Rehabilitation) Category.

Once upon a time, Kaohsiung was a place where "noxious fumes rose in the tropical sun, and people fled in terror from the river's flow," where blue skies were a rarity due to the long-term air pollution of heavy industry, where the locals didn't trust the tap water, even after boiling it.

But now the general impression of Kaohsiung has taken a 180-degree turn.

The city's transformation can perhaps be best gauged in the numbers of foreign and domestic tourists who have begun flocking to the city.

Last year, tourist visits reached 3.64 million, a 46-percent increase over the previous year. Of those visits, 44 percent went to foreign tourists. In the first half of this year, the number of tourist visits had already reached 2.06 million and appears likely to set another annual record by the end of this year.

One of the real bright spots on Kaohsiung's tourism scene has been the city's transformation of a disused sea freight warehouse within the city's harbor area into the Pier Two Art Center. Following on last year's stellar record of 1.54 million visitors to the arts center, visits have already reached 1.4 million in the first half of this year alone.

This has all come about because Kaohsiung has now begun to use a different yardstick by which to measure the city's worth.

"Kaohsiung has transformed its environment to become a city that's great to live in," says Wu Wen-yen, an assistant professor at I-Shou University's Department of Public Policy and Management.

No Fatted Calf for Developers

The city has gone from its past standard of measuring itself in terms of providing services to industry to a more people-centered approach. Behind that turnaround was a long, arduous period in which the city was blindly groping in the dark trying to find its way.

Looking back on Kaohsiung's history, it is apparent that it was a city born entirely to serve industry.