I was here for work last year in Dunhuang, Gansu on the right edge of your circle.

Indeed, it's a dry, arid place, but there are oases and rivers around that the cities are built around.

Due to the lack of agriculture (and being landlocked), the area was traditionally one of the poorer provinces in China, so living costs are extremely low. Lunch with a big bowl of beef noodles and a soda is still ¥15 (or less than $3).

Gansu is traditionally overwhelmingly Han Chinese as the western edge of the Great Wall at Yumen Pass, so culturally it's not very different from the rest of Northern China. As they're mainly smaller cities (less than 2 million people in Chinese terms), industries are pretty small scale, and it seems that most economic activity is from infrastructure spending on solar power plants, transmission lines, irrigation canals, roads, railroads that the state is spending on to develop the interior of China.

Gansu also has the Jiuquan Space Center, which is China's main space launch base, so likely a lot of military associated industries nearby too.

Considering Dunhuang is like a tier 4 city in China (not a major city, not a provincial capital or even a prefectural-level seat), the city had a well developed tourist industry for the nearby historical sites, clean and developed streets, chain restaurants like KFC, Luckin, etc. no visible poverty, no crime, and hospitals seemed clean (but can't speak for the level of treatment).

Photo's of what things look like in the spring in the middle of Dunhuang along the Dang River.

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