Here’s an amazing slideshow of Chongqing, the largest city that you’ve never heard of. And here’s an excerpt of a Foreign Policy article on the changes in China’ western region:
These are good times indeed for Chongqing, home to 32 million people and growing so quickly its maps are already out of date by the time they are printed. … In Chongqing’s northern New District today, it is possible to drive for more than half an hour past high-rises of 30 to 50 stories, block upon block, where five years ago there were only fields. In 1998, Chongqing had a GDP of just $21 billion; by 2009 it had quadrupled to $86 billion. Last year, Chongqing’s GDP grew at an eye-popping 14.9 percent, nearly twice the impressive growth rate of China as a whole. How did this happen?
Steve Clowney
(photo used under creative commons license)