Two Cities in Hubei That Were Once Prominent
Follow your soul for a vacation, welcome to watch the new episode. With the development of the economy and the progress of society, the changes in cities are also day by day. Most cities have economic growth every year, but there is a degree, some cities grow very fast and become black horses overnight, and some cities' progress is not so fast, and they have been surpassed by those fast-growing cities.
Friends who are familiar with Hubei will know that Wuhan, as a provincial capital, is absolutely the of the province, and one of the central cities in Central China. In 2019, Wuhan's GDP reached 16223 billion yuan, ranking seventh in the country and second in the province, only behind Guangzhou.
In Hubei, Wuhan can be said to be a city that dominates, and its status cannot be shaken by other cities. Currently, the second city in Hubei is Xiangyang, with a GDP of less than 5000 billion yuan, and the economic total of the cities in the fourth and fifth ranks is not enough to equal one Wuhan.
Today, we will introduce two cities in Hubei, which were once of important economic status in Hubei, and their total amounts ranked second and third in Hubei for many years. Now, they have faded into obscurity. If friends who are familiar with Hubei license plates know that B is Huangshi, and C is Tianyi, it means that Huangshi and Tianyi's overall strength could rank second and third in Hubei at that time.
The city of Huangshi may not be familiar to many friends, because its current popularity is not very high. It is a county-level city in Hubei and one of the two provincial-level cities established by Hubei Province as the earliest after the founding of New China. It also has a heavyweight title: it is the cradle of China's modern national industry. So where is its industrial advantage?
There was a saying online that often described a very wealthy person: 'He has a mine at home.' Huangshi was very rich in the past because of its mines. This city has been rich for thousands of years, relying on its mineral resources.
Huangshi relied on its solid foundation to develop its mineral industry and made progress step by step, becoming the second city in Hubei. Other cities could only envy it, because it didn't have mines.
However, even the most abundant resources will eventually run out. Huangshi couldn't escape this reality. Especially after entering the 21st century, Huangshi failed to seize the opportunities for transformation and upgrading, and continued to rely on its old business, and the economic development encountered bottlenecks. Many companies related to mining closed down, and the number of unemployed people increased.
The city of Tianyi is known as 'Car City' and is known as 'Oriental Detroit.' This shows the automotive manufacturing strength of Tianyi at that time. In 1969, the second Automotive Group chose to locate in Tianyi, which made Tianyi a city, and this city formed an industry dominated by automotive manufacturing. In the 1990s, the second Automotive Group was at its best, and Tianyi's per capita GDP even temporarily exceeded that of Wuhan, the provincial capital, showing its strength.
However, with the headquarters of the second Automotive Group moving away, Tianyi lost its pillar, and could only produce some heavy trucks, which had little economic benefit, and the economy declined gradually. The city of Tianyi is near Shennongjia and Wudang Mountain, surrounded by many nature reserves that need to be protected, so it is difficult to develop economically.
Now, the economies of Huangshi and Tianyi have been surpassed by neighboring cities. In 2019, Huangshi's GDP was only 1762 billion yuan, ranking ninth in Hubei, and Tianyi was slightly better, at 2013 billion yuan, ranking eighth. It's only been twenty or thirty years since the 1990s when choosing the city based on license plates. The two cities that were once full of glory have become distant relatives, which is worth sighing.
