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| Church in Argao, another 19th Century southern Cebu boomtown |
Without major industries and with copra production not as labor-intensive as the farming of sugar cane and other cash crops (with coconut trees taking years to grow), more and more people left the towns in the years after the second world war, leaving some of them frozen in time and looking like places that had seen better times.
The migration to the city was partly responsible for the boom in Cebu City's population after the war. From 167,000 in 1948, it ballooned to 251,000 by 1960 or an increase of 84,000 people in just 12 years.
Many of the Chinese also left the towns. In contrast, in Cebu City, Chinese businessmen and their descendants started various business enterprises from the 1950s onwards. Many of them prospered and were the most visible drivers of the city's economy. They had at their employ Cebuano masses from the towns. Downtown Cebu City might as well had been called a Chinatown with the proliferation of Chinese businesses selling all sorts of things as diverse as spare parts, textiles, housewares, jewelries, Chinese cuisine, shoes, etc.
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