Hangzhou is a upper tier 2 city.
Hangzhou's wealth is not in the main city but its rural counties and villages....
The third expressway in Hangzhou's western mountainous counties and Quzhou City was inaugurated 5 days ago....
(some sections and service centres not open yet)
It's again a very obscure classification.......
The only confirmed cities are those big four in tier one, Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou/Shenzhen.....
Some have added lower tier one like Hangzhou/Wuhan/Nanjing.
I guess the main difference is on per capita GDP and total population....
You have to have strong per capita index as well as a big population to make a stronger tier 2 city.....
A simple example:
Nanjing (upper tier two or lower tier one) vs
Nanning (lower tier two or upper tier three)
Nanjing
View attachment 357969 View attachment 357968 View attachment 357970
Nanning, Southwest China
View attachment 357974
Again, the criteria is not about "high-rises".
Beijing has fewer high buildings but still a tier one.
Chongqing has more high buildings but a tier two.
The difference lies in education, medicine, high-tech economic zone, public transport, financial activity, urbanisation rate, etc....
We should not just focus on underdeveloped tier3/4/5 cities, but in many tier 2 cities (even in tier 1 cities) the room for development is huge.....Nearly all tier1/2 cities are developing at a growth rate more than 7%, tier3-5 more than 10%.