And in 2005, academic Steve Lin, who has been closely following the impact of the rise of Chinese cities on Taiwan's cities, issued the first-ever evaluation of the competitiveness of cities with predominately ethnic Chinese populations in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
身處全球百萬人口城市最密集的西太平洋區，「中國城市興起對於台灣城市的影響」一向是林祖嘉觀察的重點。也因此，他在 2005 年首度以「兩岸四地」為基礎，進行華人圈中的城市競爭力評比。