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The revealing appeal of China’s cheapest city
Pressures of modern life push some to move to a sleepy former mining town
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Hegang in Heilongjiang province has become, by some measures, China’s cheapest city at prefecture level or above.
PHOTO: SCMP
The Economist
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Central planners have long shaped Hegang, a city in China’s far north. Once, coal and other minerals made Hegang a pillar of socialist industry. When the richest seams were declared exhausted, just over a decade ago, the central government closed many mines and put its faith in green infrastructure.
Shanty towns of soot-blackened miners’ huts were demolished and replaced with brightly painted apartment blocks, marching to the horizon beside new city parks. A high-speed rail line opened last December. There is proud talk of a graphite mine that will supply factories making batteries for new-energy vehicles.
