In the minds of many people who are old, whose thoughts are still stuck in 20 years ago, or who don't know much about the city of Chengdu, their impression of Chengdu is still that it is located in the southwest, inconvenient to enter, comfortable and comfortable, but not very developed in the west. But in reality, it isAfter nearly 20 years of rapid development, Chengdu has firmly sat on the top spot of the first city in the west, and even in the entire central and western regions of nearly 3 4 territory, in terms of comprehensive strength, if Chengdu modestly says that it is the second, it is estimated that no city can say that it is the first. 
10 years ago, Chengdu's biggest competitor in the west was Chongqing, when the Chengdu-Chongqing dispute was still in full swing, but today, discerning people know that the Chengdu-Chongqing dispute, the winner has been decided. Chengdu has surpassed Chongqing in most aspects, and the gap is getting wider and wider. Today, Chengdu is more about benchmarking Hangzhou and competing for the title of "the fifth city in the country", or the title of the fifth first-tier city, rather than sticking to the southwest and Chongqing. Therefore, this is the reason why although the Chengdu-Chongqing metropolitan area has been approved, Chengdu frequently interacts with Hangzhou, and this interaction often even exceeds that of Chongqing. Due to the nature of his work, Uncle Ping usually likes to study maps, and from the perspective of location, Chengdu, which is located in the land of abundance, is actually not just the provincial capital of Sichuan. If we regard the five southwestern provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) of Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Guizhou, and ** as a "small vassal state", I think:Today's Chengdu is more like the "capital" of the five southwestern provinces. Of course, I said that Chengdu is the "capital" of the five southwestern provinces, and that the cities of Kunming, Guiyang, and Lhasa are self-aware and have no objections, after all, the huge gap is there, and their strength does not allow them not to recognize Chengdu as a big brother. The only one who is not convinced should be Chongqing. 
It is estimated that many people will say that Chongqing, a municipality with a higher status, is the first city in the southwest, and as the former "companion capital", Chongqing is the "capital" of the five southwestern provinces. Uncle Ping is engaged in business consulting, and usually deals with all kinds of companies, as the so-called business talk, any vain head, bells and whistles, what title, what hat, in the face of real strength and data, are vulnerable. We might as well take the number of consulates set up by foreign countries as a basis to take a look at the international popularity of the five cities in the southwest. This is because the number of foreign consulates in a city is more objective and rational than that of municipalities, provincial capitals, cities with independent planning status, and special economic zones, which are the domestic standards for dividing cities into cities. Number of Consulates in the Three Southwest Cities as of June 31, 2023. Chengdu 16 ranked first, Chongqing 11 ranked second, which is the first echelon;There are 7 in Kunming, which is considered the second echelon. (1 Consulate General of Nepal in Lhasa, 0 in Guiyang). Judging from the number of foreign consulates it has, Chengdu is a large leader, which shows that in the eyes of other countries, Chengdu has the greatest influence and radiation capacity in the five southwestern cities, and it is the most worthy of placing consulates here. After all, no country would be brainless enough to put its consulate in Liupanshui, Guizhou. Including the U.S. Consulate General in the west, which has the highest gold content, was also set up in Chengdu before, and it will be closed in 2020 for special reasons, but I believe that it will still be in Chengdu if it reopens later. In fact, before 2015, the number of foreign consulates general in Chengdu and Chongqing was still about the same, and Chongqing even had two more than Chengdu at one time, and the gap was opened in 2016There are many reasons for this, but one of the most important ones is:The high-rise has different strategic positioning of the two cities。In the "Chengdu-Chongqing Urban Exhibition Plan" approved in 2016, there is a clear positioning for Chengdu, that is, ".Western Diplomatic CenterAnd Chongqing did not say so. The high-level positioning of Chengdu as a diplomatic center in the western region is actually equivalent to stamping and confirming Chengdu's "leading" position in the western region. By default, the influence and radiation of the western part of Chengdu is more than any other city. From the number of international commercial routes, Chengdu has 126, Chongqing is 95, Chengdu is about one-third more than Chongqing, which can also confirm the international influence, Chengdu is obviously higher than Chongqing, otherwise it can not support so many international commercial routes. Moreover,Chengdu is also one of only three cities in China with dual international hub airports(Tianfu International Airport, Shuangliu International Airport), the other two areBeijing(Capital International Airport, Daxing International Airport) andShanghai(Hongqiao International Airport, Pudong International Airport). 
The Consulate General is from a political point of view, from the influence and radiation capacity of the city, and then we might as well take a look at the comparison between Chengdu and Chongqing from the perspective of the flow of people and the purchase of houses by outsiders. In recent years, due to the increasing pressure on first-tier cities, the voices of fleeing from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have been heard endlessly, and these people who fled from Beishanguang have gone to **?According to the statistics of a large workplace recruitment**, most of these people have gone to second-tier cities, of which Chengdu ranks first, Hangzhou ranks second, and among the top five cities, there is no Chongqing, let alone Kunming, Guiyang and Lhasa. Everyone should often be able to brush up on the short ** platform to work and even settle down in Chengdu from Beijing or Shanghai, but there are very few who go to Chongqing to work or settle down, most of them go to Chongqing for short-term travel, only stay for three or five days, and even fewer go to Kunming and Guiyang. And to Lhasa, 9999% of them are tourists, and almost no one goes there to work, let alone settle down, which is also consistent with the above workplace ** statistics. Just now, Uncle Ping said that Chengdu is more like the "capital" of the five southwestern provinces, which can also be seen from the fact that many people in these provinces buy houses in Chengdu. In addition to the provincial capital, people in Yunnan, Guizhou and Qinghai are mainly relatively wealthy people of the middle class and above, and the first choice for buying a house after leaving the province is Chengdu. In the nineties of the last century, when Dalian was a smash hit, there was a joke among the people, saying that every department-level cadre in Northeast China wanted to build a sea-view house in Dalian. And now there is a saying that every Sichuan person, as well as many ** people and Guizhou people, want to get a house in Chengdu. 
This also explains why, in the more than five years from 2017 to 2022, although Chengdu has implemented the strictest purchase restriction policy in almost the second-tier cities, Chengdu's housing prices have still risen like rockets for 5 years, because the purchasing power is indeed too strong, and Chengdu has a strong attraction to the middle class of the five southwestern provinces. On the contrary, we can look at Chongqing, Kunming, Guiyang and Lhasa, these four cities, there is almost no limit to purchase, outsiders buy at will, but the housing prices are still tepid, this is the huge gap in the real strength of the city, it is screened out by market competition, and whether you are a municipality directly under the central government, has nothing to do with it. In fact, in addition to the five southwestern provinces, Chengdu's influence on many provinces in the northwest and northeast cannot be ignored. In the past two or three years, Uncle Ping has met a lot of Xinjiang people who have settled in Chengdu in Chengdu, and even some people from Northeast China, which is quite surprising to Uncle Ping, most of these people belong to the local middle-income and above people, which can also be speculated from the place where they bought a house, focusing on buying in Tianfu New District, with a total house price of about 3 million. It is conceivable that each of these foreign families who came to Chengdu came with a wealth of at least 5 million yuan, which may be the accumulation of wealth for half a lifetime or even a lifetime for these families. Including the wealthy group in Chongqing, note that the rich group mentioned by Uncle Ping here does not refer to the middle class, but to those who can buy real estate in Chengdu with a total price of more than 5 million, which can be regarded as the elite group of Chongqing, and in the past two or three years, it has also shown a rapid trend of flow to Chengdu. But ten years ago, even five years ago, the vast majority of this part of the wealthy people in Chongqing still disdained to go to Chengdu, and they were more willing to stay in Chongqing, but now this part of the people, this part of the local backbone of Chongqing, is also voting with their feet. Of course, for the development of Chengdu, there is now a skeptical voice on the Internet, saying that Chengdu is developed by "sucking" other cities in Sichuan, so it is jokingly calledChengdu Province, Sichuan City。Actually, you don't have to be so mean. Uncle Ping is a business consultant, shopping malls are like battlefields, and the competition between companies is extremely cruel, and it is a matter of life and death. And the competition between cities, why not?With the development of science and technology, the circulation of information, population, and wealth throughout the country is extremely convenient. Water is flowing downward, and people want to go up, and people who have the ability and money in every province want to go to a better city. Just like the rich people in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei like to go to Beijing, the people in the Yangtze River Delta prefer to go to Shanghai, and the people in the Pearl River Delta like to go to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The flow of people is accompanied by a huge transfer of wealth, a Shanxi coal boss went to Beijing, bringing hundreds of millions or even billions of wealth, an Anhui problem-solver, buying a house and settling in Shanghai, emptying out the six wallets of his hometown and the savings of three generations of life. 
Therefore, many provinces have slowly understood that instead of sitting back and watching the huge wealth flow to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, it is better to do their best to make their provincial capitals bigger and stronger, so that more people and wealth can stay in the provincial capital and stay in their own pots, instead of working hard for decades and finally working in vain and working for first-tier cities. Therefore, strengthening the provincial capital is not only the choice of Sichuan, but also the common choice of almost all awakened central and western cities such as Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Shaanxi, Hunan, etc., which is the only way for them to compete with those cities on the eastern coast that have enjoyed the dividends of policy development earlier. More importantly, the development of the provincial capital can realize internal feedback. Just imagine, if one day, Panzhihua City, Sichuan, is financially tight and it is difficult to issue pensions, who will Panzhihua ask for help first?In Sichuan Province, of course. At this time, Sichuan Province called Chengdu and said that you are living the best life now, so you can support it. Chengdu will naturally say, no problem, at the beginning, the brothers contributed money and resources, and worked together to make me bigger and stronger, but now the brothers are in difficulty, and my eldest brother is obliged to pay for it. But if you go to Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, and say that you see that it is difficult for me to pay pensions now, can you discuss and borrow a little?You may politely say, you see my hands are also tight, and there are a group of brothers waiting to eat below, so let's go back first, and we will study and study. You're welcome to say, who is this?Why did you come to me to ask for money?Therefore, I think that Sichuan, Hubei, Shaanxi, etc., with the strength of the whole province, to make the provincial capital bigger and stronger, not only is it not "blood sucking", but from the perspective of long-term development, this is a wise move to conform to the general trend, and it is a "good governance of virtue" in which the ruler is responsible to the people of the province. Many people are not convinced that Chengdu is the first city in the west, or even the first city in the central and western regions, and another important reason is that they feel that Chengdu is still relatively poor and its per capita income is not high. Indeed, from the perspective of people's wealth, there is indeed a big gap between Chengdu and the eastern coastal cities, and many of the monthly salaries of ordinary white-collar workers are still five or six thousand, and the proportion of monthly salaries of more than 10,000 is much lower than that of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but we must look at it from the perspective of development. Here Uncle Ping will tell you a piece of cold knowledge that most people don't know. Shanghai today is undoubtedly the richest and most prosperous city in China, as well as the most sophisticated city, and even in the eyes of some Shanghainese, the rest of Shanghai is rural. But how many people know that in the 80s of the last century, in the eyes of Taiwanese who came to Shanghai to invest or even work in Shanghai, Shanghai at that time was also "rural" for them, and Shanghainese were also "poor". At that time, Taiwanese men who invested or worked in Shanghai could easily marry a local girl from Shanghai as long as they took out a bride price of 100,000 yuan. In Hsinchu County, Taiwan, more than 50 kilometers southwest of Taipei City, (similar to Fangshan in Beijing or Chongming in Shanghai), there is a village in the county called ".Shanghai Daughter-in-law VillageThe reason why it is called this name is because many men in this village spent 100,000 bride price to take their Shanghai daughter-in-law over. Of course, that was thirty or forty years ago, as for now, not to mention 100,000 bride price, it is 5 million bride price, and men in Hsinchu County don't want to marry a local girl in Shanghai casually, especially a girl from a landed family in the suburbs of Shanghai, who doesn't have tens of millions of assets?By analogy, who said that today's Chengdu will not be the next Shanghai in 20 years?And, Uncle Ping thinks,There are only two cities that have the strength to be promoted to the fifth first-tier city, one is Chengdu and the other is Hangzhou. In 1990, the top 10 cities in terms of GDP in China were: Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing, Suzhou, Shenyang, Dalian, HangzhouChengdu。Chengdu came in last, 10th. In 2022, the top 10 cities in terms of GDP in China are: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Suzhou,Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Nanjing. Chengdu ranked 7th. From the ranking point of view, although Chengdu only rose 3, but don't underestimate these 3 rankings, this is the victory over Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan three extremely strong opponents achieved, Nanjing and Hangzhou are also developed cities on the eastern coast, accounting for the past 30 years of opening up to the outside world, as the farthest from the marine economy of Chengdu, to achieve such results, it is not easy, which can also be seen Chengdu's strength. In addition to the relative ranking, look at the absolute number, in 1990, Chengdu's GDP was 17.4 billion, and in 2022, Chengdu's GDP will be 2,081.7 billion, soaring 119 times in 32 years, ranking second among the top 10 cities, second only to Shenzhen (189 times). During the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang's plan for Liu Bei was:Those who are in Yizhou are fertile for thousands of miles, and the country of abundance is also, and if the public takes it, it will be profitable. Liu Bei followed it, and finally established the Shu State, set the capital Chengdu, and confronted Cao Wei, standing on three legs. After Shu Han, Chengdu was successively the capital of Cheng Han, former Shu, Hou Shu and other countries, coupled with the innate advantages of the Chengdu Plain, by the time of the Tang Dynasty, Chengdu had developed into one of the most developed cities in the country's industry and commerce. After the Anshi Rebellion, Chang'an and Luoyang declined, and the southern cities rose, there was such an idiom in the history books at that time, called "Yang Yi Yi Two", Yang is Yangzhou, Yi is Chengdu, what is said is on the rich Chengdu, Yangzhou first, Chengdu second. At present, Chengdu has a total population of 21.26 million, ranking third in the country. In first place is Shanghai with 24.75 million, followed by Beijing with 21.84 million, and Chengdu is also the only three megacities in the country with a population of more than 20 million. (Chongqing is too large, strictly speaking, it is a province, not a city, and it makes no sense to compare it, so it is eliminated.) If you only look at the traditional main urban area, the total population of the 9 districts of the main city of Chongqing is about 11 million, which is about the same as Xi'an, Qingdao and Dongguan). 
Whether it is from the perspective of economy, population, location, or even national strategy, Chengdu has unlimited potential in the future. Therefore, if you want to choose the leading city in the west, there is no doubt that Uncle Ping will vote for Chengdu with his vote. 100 help plan