With the rise of industry in Kaohsiung, the agricultural counties of central and southern Taiwan began to lag behind, but at least there was a minimal kind of balance on the island as a whole with "two heads, one north and one south." And to some degree the provincial government's location in Nantou-and the resulting stream of visiting city and county bureaucrats-meant that central Taiwan wasn't all that forlorn.
高雄的崛起，讓台灣在中南部農業縣分逐漸沒落的七十年代，還勉強保有「南北兩頭大」的起碼均衡，加上台灣省政府一直握有控管地方的實權，中興新村所在的南投及中部一帶，縣市百官絡繹於途，倒也使得中部地區不會太寂寞。