I've been here 2 weeks now, of which i've been living around the Huawei campus which is in the suburbs. It is only a 30 min bus ride downtown, or shorter by taxi (though at rush hour, both might take longer) and I've made it downtown a few times to meet friends for dinner (and to do a health check which is required to change my work permit).
Downtown Shenzhen is split in a few different areas but as expected there is a lot of new, tall office buildings and shopping malls, though further towards the border with Hong Kong you have the older buildings. There's some nice parks and a decent subway with a few lines (it's growing, and there should be a new line opening next to our apartment in 18 months or so). As most people now know Shenzhen was a tiny fishing village 30-odd years ago and now is a city of 10m people or so. It seems it has been planned quite well with a good highway system to get around and good interchanges and intentional placement of things like exhibition centres, universities etc.
Originally Shenzhen also had a border around it as it had different economic/tax systems compared to the rest of China (it was the "experiment" for China's economic reforms). Though that border no longer exists there are reminders of it, for example, one of the main highways heading north out of the center through the hills still has a big checkpoint there, which is not used. The highway just splits in the middle and goes around it, and the bus stop sits next to it - you walk through a ghost building full of customs boxes and railings for queues that have no been used for several years. Because of this there are other oddities too - two different colors of taxis, the green ones can only go in the suburbs (outside where the border was) and the red ones can go in the inner city and the suburbs.
No-one that lives here now over the age of 20 was born in Shenzhen. Everyone has moved here since the 80s so you get a real mix of accents (though the majority do seem to be from Southern China) and thankfully everyone speaks Mandarin (the same dialect as in Beijing) rather than Cantonese which neighboring Guangzhou and Hong Kong speak (and dominates around southern China) so that makes life a bit easier (though all Cantonese speakers can speak mandarin too). However it has also led to Shenzhen's reputation as being the crime capital of China (particular due to the high number of migrant workers that are only here short-term) though its probably way better than many Western cities, it does unfortunately mean its less common to just cycle around and leave a bike padlocked up somewhere like in Beijing.
However Shenzhen is actually quite bike friendly with lots of bike paths on the pavements, and a whole system of "Green Paths" which are hundreds of miles of bicycle lanes for more serious biking along the coast, through the hills or elsewhere, and another network of local bike lanes in different districts. Today I took one of the main bike lanes that goes up and over the hill that separates my suburb form downtown. It was a hard ride, but fun and a good way to test how capable my new fold-up bike is! The weather right now is perfect, about 25 degrees and not humid... unfortunately the Summer might be another story, but we'll see.
Shenzhen also has an area where the foreigners live, called Shekou, which has lots of trendy bars and restaurants (much centered around a massive boat placed in a small lake with fountains and accompanying light/music show). It is really convenient there to get a ferry to Hong Kong airport in half an hour (and to Hong Kong itself in an hour) and I guess some people like the sea-views. However it's over an hour commute from my office and more expensive. We're quite happy living a Chinese lifestyle in a beautiful community with 3 playgrounds, a big swimming pool, and lots of grassy areas for the kids to play on (as well as the balcony overlooking the mountains and a reservoir nearby to run around).
Shenzhen seems to have a few key features. One of which is the ridiculous nature of the apartment complexes. Shenzhen is the real estate capital of China. Most of the big real estate companies started here (to build the city from scratch) and made a lot of money here. There are so many ginormous apartment complexes with tends of buildings in each phase (and then some have more than ten phases as the company added more buildings on adjacent land they purchased). Most of the complexes are well designed though.
The second is that outside of the old border, there are a lot of local high streets or villages where the migrant workers live. These little villages haven't changed much in 20 years and are run-down, but cheap and full of atmosphere. Beijing had some too but Shenzhen has lots as they needed (and still need) cheap places for the migrant workers to live. We're going to enjoy exploring these places!
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