[City Profile] Yichang City is the sub-center city of Hubei Province with an area of 21,000 square kilometers and a population of 4.15 million. It has already been awarded the titles of the National Civilized City, National Sanitary City, National Environmental Protection Model City, National Forest City, National Garden City and National Excellent Tourist City. In 2013, its GDP reached 281.8 billion yuan and the local public budget revenue 20.63 billion yuan.
　　Having been endowed with great opportunities brought about by the two great projects, the Three Gorges Dam and the Gezhouba Dam, Yichang, used to be a small city in the western Hubei Province, has seized the time to quickly transform itself into a big city. Now it is the second largest city in Hubei in terms of its comprehensive strength, with its GDP having reached 281.8 billion yuan in 2013.
　　Yichang keeps on pursing a better development. When we were still appreciating the remarkable achievements that she has achieved, she has set herself a big new goal, that is, to build herself into a large, strong, excellent and beautiful modern mega-city.
　　When you know more about Yichang, you’ll love more about this city, particularly for its active and initiative attitudes towards development. The city always keeps forging ahead and dares to dream with indomitable spirit.
　　Big Plan: Build a New Yichang within Five Years
　　The Yichang municipal government made the plan of building a big and strong as well as a great and beautiful city at the end of 2012. But what is the standard of this megacity? “Big" refers to large scale, striving to build it into a city with an area of 200 square kilometers and a resident population of 2 million by the end of the year 2015. In 2030, the planning area and resident population are expected to respectively reach 300 square kilometers and 3 million, with the long-term planning area of 500 square kilometers and a population of 5 million; "strong" refers to form a strong industrial base, urban functions and comprehensive strength, trying to rank third at least among the same-level cities of the central region; "great" refers to make Yichang a paradise for investment and living; "beautiful" refers to build an extremely beautiful image of the city, in order to better present the public with its beautiful environment, history and culture and modern civilization.
　　Yichang has already been a provincial sub-center city with over 20 billion local financial revenue annually and more than 130 million inhabitants in the main part of Yichang. As a result, some people think that there is no need to further build itself a mega-city. Indeed, it’s really difficult for a prefecture-level city to build a modern mega-city as the whole population of Yichang is just over 400 million.
　　The great courage of Yichang City is derived from its confidence and responsibility. From the perspective of current administration, Yichang is still at the new turning point, with the golden opportunities to develop itself. At the Tenth Party Congress of Hubei Province, a proposal was put forward, namely “Support Yichang to accelerate the constructions of a sub-center provincial city, a regional central city of the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River as well as the world famous hydroelectric tourist city, in order to lay a solid foundation for the final realization of being a modern mega-city.” In light of the current situation, on one hand, the urbanization rate of Yichang has already reached 56% and the city has entered the period of rapid development. On the other, the old urban areas have faced the challenges of traffic congestion and the bad capacity of housing and environment. Meanwhile, the population density has exceeded to the level of some first-level cities such as Beijing and Shanghai so that people are living in a crowed environment. Thus, it is essential for the government to expand the city.
　　In order to emancipate our minds and reach a common understanding, Huang Chuping, the Municipal Party Secretary, led the government delegation personally to visit the central and eastern areas of China including Jiangsu Province, Shenzhen City and Hong Kong for seeking experience. They were inspired by these developed areas to realize the leapfrog development in Yichang and build her into a mega-city. The experts inside and outside the city gave support to the development strategy. For instance, the Three Gorges Daily has already published over one hundred reports on the new strategy in half a year, making the people of the whole city reach a consensus rapidly.
　　Yichang People are determined to rebuild a new Yichang in five years!
　　Big Vision: A Modern City with Foresight
　　On September 21, at the construction site of Yichang Miaozui Yangtze River Bridge of the south bank of the river, the reporters unfolded the drawings of the construction planning and took a close look at it. They were overwhelmed with pride and happiness after they looked over the drawings and dreamed about the layout of this future magnificent mega-city.
　　A young civil servant, a fellow from Wuhan to Yichang, told the reporters that he has already felt deeply in love with this vigorous and attractive city.
　　The New District of Yichang, which stretches across two river banks and one river, will become the main field of building a modern mega-city. The construction of the New District started more than a year ago, and now its major projects such as the headquarters of the enterprises of the district, planning exhibition hall, museums, theaters, concert halls, road network and business complex of the East Station, Olympic Sports Center, Huaxi Road, Mojishan Park and Binjiang Business District are under smooth construction with a total investment of more than ten billion yuan.
　　Li Hongzhong, the Party Secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee emphasized that “Yichang should be a city that shines nationwide and worldwide”, and Wang Guosheng, the Mayor of Hubei Province, required that “we should build Yichang into a top star city in the country”. Yichang people realize that they should not only have the horizon of Hubei Province, of the central China, and of the Yangtze River Region, but also open their minds to the whole country and the world. In short, their thinking should not be constrained by the geographical location of Yichang City, but should be good at thinking out of the box in order to build a better Yichang.
　　Thanks to Yichang people’s global perspective, Yichang’s new expansion strategy is not simply like land expanding or “steel building forest” any more. Under an international horizon and with a post-modern plan and building concept, Yichang people are building a living-friendly and prosperous city. Last year, Yichang offered a reward of 3 million RMB yuan to seek the design plan for the ecological urban area in Dianjun District. The top planning and design institutes around the world submitted more than 120 plans. In the end, Wuhan Planning & Design Institute and ARCADIS from Netherland won the competition. Li Zhonghong spoke highly of the design: “It is grand and full of fresh ideas, and embodies the international view and displays the determination of starting a career. It is very inspiring and encouraging.”
　　Being different from other new districts, the new district in Yichang is not separated from the old urban area, but being integrated with it. The new district will occupy 220 km2 and be embellished by mountains and waters.
　　A good environment is crucial for the healthy development of a city, and the new district in Yichang lays particular emphasis on protecting the environment during the course of its construction. The reporter learned that in a construction project, it was planned to build a road at the foot of a mountain, but in order to protect the mountain, the two-way driveways were not built on the same level. And it was beautiful despite of the unusualness. The constructors of the megacity are protecting the environment as well as making life convenient for people.
　　Having been attracted by the new pattern and broad horizon of Yichang, the leading real estate enterprises such as China Resources, Everbright, Vanke and Country Garden have invested here more than 100 billion RMB yuan in total, promoting the construction of the new district.  
　　Some people from the other cities were also attracted to buy houses and start their careers in Yichang. According to the statistics from the Municipal Real Estate Management Department, in 2013, the buyers out of the city made up of 38% of the total number of the house purchasers. When being asked why they wanted to buy houses in Yichang, they said they it was comfortable to live here. The concept of post-modernism is not foreign, and on the contrary, it is rooted in the deep hearts of us. Sensible city builders are supposed to listen carefully and respond the voices from the deep heart of people.
　　Powerful drive: six 100-billion RMB industries initiate the development engine
　　A city without industrial support is like a building without foundation and roof, and it will leave the city construction without driving force, the people without jobs and the market cultivation without configuration space.
　　Yichang has powerful industrial force on the road of building a megacity.
　　In the workshop of ZTE, the cars made in Yichang—the ZTE “City Ark” were coming down from the production line. According to the agreement among Yichang government, Guangzhou Automobile Group and ZTE, the GAG cooperates with ZTE to build an industry of producing 300 thousand cars per year with an output value of 30 billion RMB yuan, and to lead the industry with an output value of 180 billion RMB yuan.
　　According to the Director of the Municipal Policy Research Office, the development approach of Yichang is to optimize the cluster competitive advantage and build a modern industrial system with Yichang’s characteristics and comprehensive competitive advantage. In the past ten years, the GDP of Yichang has increased by five times, which has laid a solid foundation for the industrial development of the city. In 2016, six 100-billion RMB industries, fine chemicals industry, food and biomedicine industry, advanced equipments manufacturing industry, advanced materials industry, cultural tourism industry and modern logistics industry, will be built. And the output value of the city will be more than 50 billion RMB yuan. The city will become the largest hydroelectric energy base in the world, the largest phosphorus chemical industry base in the country, the most important production base of food and beverage, biomedicine base, advanced equipments manufacturing base, advanced materials production base and recycle economy demonstration base. Moreover, it will be the world’s top city for tourists, the transporting center city of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and the regional center city of modern services.
　　Will the dream of building a megacity come true? The answer is very positive.
　　(Reporters: Hou Changqing, Gao Jun, Mao Guoyin, Li Hui, Guo Congjia)