HK's favourite hobby is Shenzhen bashing. My retort would be: at least Shenzhen residents don't need government housing support!
Which areas have you been? There's actually a lot of variation across the city, but single districts tend to be fairly similar. For example, Luowu is old and crowded, and quite built up. Futian is car-oriented, with wide roads and a commercial focus in most areas, but also a cultural area. Huaqiangbei area has huge malls, tech, but also parks and gardens. Nanshan has a lot of tech companies and universities, but also some lovely green areas. Shekou is another old area but with a glitzy mall zone as well. Houhai is a huge mall area with a theater and open public space. Qianhai is an emerging financial district with lots of apartments and westerly water views. There are numerous mountains across the city, many of which have nice streets and parks nestled against them. Then there is the semi-industrial Bao'an district, a lot of waterfront parks, beaches out to the east, etc. It's pretty varied I'd say. Perhaps you just haven't seen enough of it?
Lived 3 years in Shenzhen, and 2 years in HK. Now I live in Shanghai. From my perspective, what the grandparent said about Shenzhen is very true. You just can't compare "green areas" in Shenzhen (Wutong mt? Meilin? What else?) to the enormous and amazing network of country trails like MacLehose Trail in Hong Kong. Is it also incredibly diverse, you can walk around posh Central, then hop on a ferry to Lamma or Cheung Chau and be on a beach in 20 minutes. Come back and walk 20 minutes up to SoHo/PoHo area, walk through Lan Kwai Fong and climb the Mid-level Escalators (amazing by itself) up, walk the Bowen road through the beautiful greenery and descend into hectic Causeway Bay area. Hong Kong is endless and people are actually interesting and open. Shenzhen is one giant construction site where people just work, gorge on food, and shop. Absolutely soulless.
"Absolutely soulless"? How do you define soul? The middle of HK is the world's densest collection of enormous banks, paper-shufflers and finance types, with some desertified malls and generic retail. Granted, for geographic reasons Shenzhen doesn't have HK's network of (historically established, precipitous, mountainous) national parks, but Shanghai has no nature at all. Last time I visited HK they had ripped out the art museum, the one decent cultural attraction.
Yes, I agree with you. Shanghai is very far from being my favorite place on Earth, but for other reasons I am here, and from pure architectural and cultural points of view, it is way above most Chinese cities. Hong Kong, on the other side, becoming more and more China-fied. That's partly a reason why I left. My friends who stayed there all agree it's getting worse with every year. Though there is still much to see and do there, and amount of open clubs for any kind of interests from MTB to cross-stitching is staggering.
Which areas have you been? There's actually a lot of variation across the city, but single districts tend to be fairly similar. For example, Luowu is old and crowded, and quite built up. Futian is car-oriented, with wide roads and a commercial focus in most areas, but also a cultural area. Huaqiangbei area has huge malls, tech, but also parks and gardens. Nanshan has a lot of tech companies and universities, but also some lovely green areas. Shekou is another old area but with a glitzy mall zone as well. Houhai is a huge mall area with a theater and open public space. Qianhai is an emerging financial district with lots of apartments and westerly water views. There are numerous mountains across the city, many of which have nice streets and parks nestled against them. Then there is the semi-industrial Bao'an district, a lot of waterfront parks, beaches out to the east, etc. It's pretty varied I'd say. Perhaps you just haven't seen enough of it?