Most apartments and school buildings are built to survive the earthquakes that occasionally strike. Subway systems (where they are available) create these huge underground tunnels filled with markets and gates. If you're used to the big city features of a place like New York City, then the cities in Taiwan should feel easy to adjust to.
There is a strong warning I'd give to anyone considering a move to one of the big Taiwanese cities: air pollution. The skies in the large northern and western metropolitan areas such as Taipei, Tainan and Kaohsiung can often show it on the worst days. With the amount of cars and scooters buzzing about, it might be hard to notice at first how it feels to breathe the polluted air. After traveling to the greener cities on the east coast such as Yilan however, I realized that the heavy industrial development in big cities affects how comfortable it is to breathe heavily.
To deal with the pollution, it's common to check the air quality index online and wear face masks in public on bad air days. It might be a little confusing at first, as people also wear masks to indicate they might be sick with a cold. Either way, citizens take their respiratory health very seriously as a result of the environment they live in. On a more positive note, the island air is otherwise warm and easy to adjust to throughout its seasons.
