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in "driving toward modernity", zhang jun, a phd in anthropology from yale university, cited this data: in 1993, china produced less than 230,000 passenger cars, and "96% of china's total auto sales went to government departments or state-owned enterprises."

what zhang jun wants to express is that the public's awakening to private car consumption originated in the mid-1990s. at that time, people believed that driving a private car could easily go shopping and drive to the beach anytime and anywhere. private cars were associated with freedom, poetry, and distance, but the reality was that cars at that time belonged to only a very small number of people.

it was not until 2000 that the policy of "encouraging cars to enter families" was officially written into the country's 10th five-year plan. the relationship between private cars and urban development was determined from that year. alibaba, which later completely overturned the consumption habits of chinese people and broke the boundaries of consumption life between cities, was less than a year old at the time.

in the following 20 years, with the emergence of cars that were less than 150 years old and the internet that was only 55 years old, humans have played a role in completely and rapidly transforming cities with thousands of years of history.

traffic on city streets. (photo/tuchong creative)

the structures of cities around the world are similar, consisting of streets, buildings, public spaces, social classes and jobs. however, due to external factors such as resource allocation, talent flow and cultural integration, people still cannot find two cities that are exactly the same in the world.

this provides young people around the millennial generation with the opportunity to travel to different cities and experience different lifestyles and paces.

for example, there is a category of cities named "c". they are important cities with license plates of "c" in various provinces in china. the development history of c cities is actually a history of china's development from basic industry to manufacturing industry and then to globalization. this is also the process of people's transformation from relying on the collective to relying on the class, and finally returning to valuing their own emotional values.

city c does not mean the third. it offers a different lifestyle and development path from china’s city a and city b. it is also an option worth trying.

01

"steel city": the first generation of c city

the question is whether the city or the profession came first.

enkidu was stunned when he first entered uruk from the wilderness. he saw groups of people behind the city walls - people in the city were either engaged in mental or physical labor, and there was bread, beer, and carnival in the city.

if we talk about the origin of cities, we probably can't avoid the epic of gilgamesh. in the modern context, we can probably think of enkidu as a rural man, and cities are people who gather together. some of them grow wheat, some graze, and some dig ditches for artificial irrigation. when there is more division of labor and wealth, and more people, cities appear.

some cities have discovered particularly precious things. for example, the city called "melbourne" today was originally called "new gold mountain" because gold mines were discovered there; and the same is true for the name of "san francisco" in north america.

there are similar cities in china, such as anshan is equivalent to steel, fushun is equivalent to coal mines, xuzhou is the "china construction machinery capital", and shiyan is the "china truck capital".

anshan mine. (photo/tuchong creative)

in a sense, the world is still a factory. no matter what kind of work we do or how we live, it is the way we make our living in this world factory.

to understand how city c became what it is today, perhaps we can try to extend the observation period.

in 1943, china's total steel output was only 922,000 tons, of which the northeast contributed 869,000 tons, almost all of which was produced by showa steel in anshan. in 1939, the sino-japanese joint venture boshan lida coal mine company was established in zibo, producing 900 tons of coal per day.

after the founding of new china, baoji, wuzhong, qinhuangdao, yangquan and other future c-level cities were the ones with the best economic development among c cities in the 1980s because of their industries related to natural resources during that period.

taking around 1950 as an example, the per capita gdp of anshan and siping was between 160 and 170 yuan; the per capita gdp of luoyang, quanzhou and xiangtan was around 60 yuan.

in the following decade, anshan remained the "king of c cities". coincidentally, fushun, which is close to anshan, had a license plate of "liao d" and was also the "king of d cities" during that period.

the west open-pit mine in fushun was first mined in 1901, and 118 years later, it was announced to be "retired" in 2019. during the years of mining, the coal mines in fushun and the iron mines in anshan had a more or less symbiotic relationship.

the west open-pit mine in fushun. (photo/tuchong creative)

no wonder the northeast has long been called the "eldest son of the republic", a situation that was not broken until the mid-1980s.

those cities rose because they had the resources needed for the development of that era.

during that period, the definition of a city was related to industry and work, and people did not seem to care about what kind of security and personal development they could get in the city. this is a bit like what mumford called "coke city", in which he spared no effort to criticize the squeeze of machinery and capital on citizens' lives in that era, so that the humanistic spirit of the city was ignored.

zigong in sichuan, which was named after the two salt wells "ziliujing" and "gongjing", was officially established as a city in 1939; the coal mine in wuhai, inner mongolia, had not yet been discovered and it still belonged to ningxia at the time and was called taole; ​​zhuhai at that time was just a fishing village in zhongshan adjacent to macau. its most valuable feature was the shizimen waterway that connected macau and hengqin island.

november 8, 2019, zhuhai, guangdong. zhuhai grand theater light show, "little shell" blooms with a smile. (photo/visual china)

02

integrating into the world: city c in the millennium

although people now call the motor vehicle license plate combination of "province + city" the "type 92", the prototype of this structure began in 1985.

in november of that year, the ministry of transport and the ministry of public security issued the "notice on the use of new motor vehicle license plates". one of the most notable changes was that the province codes were changed from numerical codes to chinese abbreviations; another change was that the numbering unit was reduced from provinces to cities, and the license plate number appeared for the first time. the license plate number was uniformly numbered from "01" to "99" by the provincial public security traffic management department, with one number for each city.

under the call of reform and opening up, people in the 1980s began to embrace the world and participate in a larger network of division of labor. the rumble of traditional coal mining gradually subsided, and heavy industry did not retreat, but began to try to mine and utilize in a more refined way.

during that period, the power brought by reform and opening up began to spread in the south.

around 1985, zhuhai, which had only been established for 6 years, began to surpass anshan in terms of per capita gdp. correspondingly, xiamen, fujian, a d-level city, also surpassed fushun, liaoning during that period.

xiamen shimao straits tower. (photo/tuchong creative)

the c-brand city started to gain momentum around the turn of the millennium. cities such as quanzhou and wenzhou rose to prominence through manufacturing and commodity trade, breaking the monopoly of the “steel city”. guilin, the first internet celebrity city, also began to accumulate capital for its future popularity at that time.

it cannot be said that the early "steel city" declined, but rather that china's urban types began to increase and cities began to show diversified approaches. commerce, trade, culture and tourism are becoming increasingly prosperous with the development of the times, and are not just divided by innate resources and policies.

according to the national bureau of statistics, when the people's republic of china was founded, there were only 132 cities in china, and the urban population accounted for only 7.3% of the national population. but by 2000, china had more than 600 cities, and the urbanization rate exceeded 36%.

back in 2000, the era of "encouraging cars to enter families", from the perspective of industry and national economy, china entered a rapidly developing automobile society from that moment on, bringing us on the road of chinese-style modernization.

traffic on guangzhou highway. (photo/tuchong creative)

the face of the middle class also became clearer during this period. rather than saying that this is a group, it is better to say that the lifestyle, consumption desire, identity, individual mobility and even emotional expression of a certain class in society are all linked to private cars.

even the license plate number of a car is given a symbol of identity and status. in 2007, at the xinghai concert hall in guangzhou, two middle-aged men in t-shirts and shorts bought the license plate number "888b8" for 220,000 yuan.

zhang jun also mentioned in "driving towards modernity" that on august 12, 2002, the central government piloted a personalized license plate system in the four cities of beijing, tianjin, hangzhou and shenzhen. however, due to the emergence of license plate applications such as "ibm-001", "nba", "fbi" and even "sex", the policy only survived for 10 days.

if we look back to around 2000, why manufacturing and commercial cities such as zhuhai, zibo, quanzhou and wenzhou rose in the per capita gdp ranking of city c? it is because these industries can accumulate personal wealth rapidly.

in fact, among the b-brand cities, shenzhen, wuxi, ningbo, dalian, and qingdao also surpassed the heavy industrial areas such as jilin, baotou, and shizuishan in terms of per capita gdp during that period. before entering the internet era, china's major cities completed a series of reconstruction and reorganization.

03

relaxation: today's c city

of course, there are countless opportunities in big cities. for example, for many media professionals with a certain level of experience, when they first start working, they can go out for lunch, and it doesn’t matter whether they get off work on time at night - as long as they shout, their friends will appear at a food stall on the street.

who would have thought that going out for lunch now has become ordering takeout, and the laughter and scolding that go with the meal have become "electronic pickled mustard tubers". even if old friends can occasionally get together, the once bustling restaurants have long since become unaffordable places.

as many people yearn for big cities and megacities, as many people fear the industrialization and assembly line life in these cities.

workers in the city are caught up in all kinds of anxieties. (photo/"ordinary people's song")

in particular, capital can flow unimpeded, especially the internet, which has disrupted the traditional order of life. for example, people have become accustomed to communicating on the internet, so urban social networks have become dispensable. there are fewer and fewer cafes with many seats, and there are more and more check-in spots that can help individuals enhance their online influence.

in 2023, people seem to have suddenly woken up from a state of chaos. this year, our urbanization rate has exceeded 66%, which has brought various possibilities to our cities.

in april of that year, no one expected that zibo would become famous for its delicious barbecue. just like what enkidu saw in the epic of gilgamesh, there was bread, beer, and crowds of people reveling in that city. but our "enkidu" did not enter the city from the wilderness or the countryside, but escaped from the big city that emphasized order, system, and commuting day after day, and ran to "lu c" to experience what it was like to be free and at ease.

(photo: "i get off work on time")

in the past, a barbecue restaurant in zibo only needed one waiter to meet the needs of customers, but last year during peak hours, a barbecue restaurant needed 40 waiters.

quanzhou also seems to have two sides. industry is one side, and the other side is quanzhou culture represented by "zhanhuawei" and "starting point of maritime silk road", which has made this ancient city the most popular tourist destination in fujian in recent years.

zigong, sichuan, a city rich in salt, is actually one of the origins of sichuan cuisine. boiled beef and cold rabbit both come from zigong. people in the world define sichuan cuisine as spicy, fresh and fragrant, but they forget the basic component of the dish - salt.

salt appears so naturally, but it does not take itself for granted. this is just like the current c city, which does not dominate the city, but lives in peace and contentment. this attitude is very consistent with the state of today's young people.

especially since entering the "fourth consumer era", the younger generation no longer values ​​so-called "private cars" or "luxury goods" as much as in the past. this generation pays attention to the sharing economy, individuality and self-perception.

(photo/"go where the wind is")

when they find that they cannot shake the lifestyle of those big cities, city c will more or less enter their life options and enter their vision where they can at least escape for a short time.

the impact of the first industrial revolution on mankind was the railway. proust said in "remembrance of things past" that since the railway, we have learned to value every minute to avoid delaying the train. in ancient rome, people only had a superficial knowledge of astronomy and their lives were not so busy. not only did they not have a clear concept of minutes, but they did not even have a clear concept of hours.

the emergence of private cars seems to be to allow people to regain the right to control time. from a certain perspective, city c is like ancient rome in proust's eyes. you can win or wait for something without much fear. compared with city a and city b, it is a more life-like and accurate answer.

these c cities are not like the survival of the fittest in darwin's theory of evolution, nor are they like alice in the dream, who has to keep running to find the answer to "who am i?"

city c seems to have become a life attitude - let go of yourself, don't be inward-looking, and find the side of life that belongs to life.