The Third Part The Avenue of Chang'an is Connected with a Variety of Small Streets and Lanes;Wooden Wagons Come and Go in the Streets

Livelihood is the "foundation of people's happiness and social harmony". Over the past 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the people's lives have made earth-shaking changes, from inadequately fed and clad to a well-off life in all-round way. The income of urban and rural residents has achieved rapid growth;living standards have made significant improvement; the consumption structure has been upgraded, and the living environment has marked betterment.

Rapid Growth in Residents' Income and Wind-down of Rural-urban Divide

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the provincial party committee and government have valued and focused on people's livelihood, adhered to the strategy of balancing urban and rural development, strengthened policy to aid agriculture and benefit farmers, and strived to achieve residents' income growth in the same pace with economic growth to swell the people's money bags. The per capita disposable income of urban residents rose from 310 RMB in 1978 to 36,098 RMB in 2019, an increase of 115.4 times. The per capita disposable income of farmers rose from 134 RMB to more than 10,000 RMB, namely, 12,326 RMB, an increase of 90.9 times. The income gap between urban and rural residents is gradually disappearing. The ratio of urban to rural residents' income has been declining steadily in recent years. The ratio of urban to rural residents' income was 2.31∶1 in 1978, reaching a record high of 3.87∶1 in 2003 and has declined year by year since 2004; especially since the 18th CPC National Congress, the income gap between urban and rural residents has further shortened. In 2019, the ratio of urban and rural incomes was 2.93∶1, 0.94 percentage points lower than that of 2003.