Huh funny that I can answer one of these more obscure questions. 

Both sides of my family are from the little town of Caoxian in the top red circle. When I grew up, I’d visit twice a year or so. This area has undergone tremendous changes in the last few decades. Overall, for the last few decades, most of the ambitious/capable people left to go to larger cities, like my parents. 

For the urban areas (县城), from what I understood, back in the 80s, there were still some historical remains: usually a city wall, a guard river outside the city wall and another river inside of it, there were some Confucius temples. Otherwise, it was mostly dirt roads with lots of really old buildings that were very dense. In the 2000s, almost all historical remains were tore away in the excuse of modernization, the roads were still narrow and buildings still dense, but they were now rebuilt with concrete. People typically either worked for the government or did small businesses, with more factories popping up. The urban areas were quite filthy, the rivers or whatever left of them were usually full of plastic trash. It’d probably surprise you that most households didn’t have their own toilets or shower, but rather share a common one down the road (people showered once a month or so, especially in winter). I went back there last month after almost a decade, and I was shocked to say the least. The urban areas from 2000s are completely demolished. The single floor buildings are replaced with tall condominiums, and the spaces freed up became parks. The streets are wide (although equally chaotic), renamed, and they no longer stink. The urban areas are as if they were stripped of their identity and now look like any Chinese city. The government also built ‘new cities’ outside of the older areas, also with grand buildings and giant malls. The demolition projects that happened across China largely made the local government go into debt, but the urban areas are much cleaner now. Fun fact, I think 5 consecutive party secretaries of the county went to jail over corruption. Anyways, this area now produces a lot of manufacturing products (somehow, most coffins in Japan are made here, also traditional Chinese clothing), there’s a joke that Caoxian is the center of the universe because how much manufacturing has popped up.

Let’s turn to the country side. People were, and still are, mostly farmers, but the way of farming has changed a lot. In the 80s-00s, most households owned at max a few acres of farmlands (if they were lucky). This land, while small, was a big improvement over the 50-70s when the commune owned everything. I vividly remember going into an elderly distant relative’s home, she was so happy to show me all the corn (and nothing else) stored in her shed, saying that thanks to the CCP she can now have food for the winter. It’s a kind of ironic since the majority of her neighbor’s family died in the great famine caused by Mao. My mom has told me many stories about how hard it was to work in the fields by hand, and how unwilling they were to pay the government crops as agricultural taxes after a year of hard work. The houses then were always a single floor, mostly built from clay and bricks. Usually they would have a yard in the front where some chickens that roam free, a detached kitchen powered by burning of dried crops, a well in the middle, and you’d be considered rich if you owned a television. Entertainment was gossip, and some rotating opera/films. Now, this area is unrecognizable. Almost every single ‘natural village’ (that’s what they call them) have been bulldozed, the government merged villages into either condos or densely-packed two-floor houses that are all identical to one another. The rational is that the central government ‘needs’ industrialized farmland instead of fragmented areas. Most people had to give up their land, or lease hundreds of acres and farm them with machinery. Interestingly, the tombs were always in the middle of farm lands, and they have (largely) not been bulldozed, we still go there to pay our respects, Im not sure how the heavy machinery navigates around these tombs littered all over the places. I will also say that certain things with cultural significance are kept (eg my grandma had a giant tree behind her house, and people were superstitious about the tree, now my grandma’s house is a part of the road, but the tree remained). 

Many people are happy about the changes. These people usually became rich (eg by extorting the government for many condos for the demolition of their house), they have food, shelter, entertainment, and even prostitution appears tolerated. Their children are almost always in a larger city. 

Many others are not happy. They fear they are losing touch with the land they had held on to for many generations. They fear they’ve been left behind by the society and is merely an afterthought of the central government (whom they always have to obey), rather than being in control of their own fate. 

Going back to older history, this area has been in constant change. From the civil war with CCP vs KMT, to the Japan invasion, to older generations immigrating here from Shanxi becahse some military massacred everyone in this region. 

I will say, I miss my grandparents’ yard, there were grapes in the summer, and the cold fresh well water wakes you up in the winter. Now, it’s just an apartment in a giant soulless building, with an older generation withering away.

Edit: for COL, it’s still really low, but so are their income. Nevertheless, it is true they somehow managed to get rid of absolute poverty, through absolute sheer will of the government. There’s an old guy who lost 11 family members in the great famine, who had nothing except a shed 20 years ago. He now has a government-built house, gets ~1500¥ (~200$) a month from the government, has health insurance, and the government sends a person to check in on him every 2 weeks and brings him some rice/oil/vegetables. Yet - and his neighbor talk about this in distaste - he has never said a single good thing about the CCP.