Markets were great up until 10 years ago, not so much now. The HQB was like 6-7 times bigger its current size in city blocks, and there were still functioning factories there.
People who come to Shenzhen today, and see HQB for the first time still loose strength in their legs from the scale.
My impression from life in the city... Hard to describe. The city's last 15 years were bizarre, speaking lightly.
It's eclectic to the extreme.
The city simple doesn't feel like China at all, nor like anything else in the world. Even Hongkong feels to be more like a Chinese city than Shenzhen to me. I think the only comparison I can come up with will be... Dubai. People come with different epithets for it, I think the most original one I heard was it being an "alien colony."
Without any doubt, it's one of the best cities to live in Asia, and it beast Shanghai and Beijing hands down on quality of life now. But just 10 years ago people were calling it a hellhole.
Back in 2009, I went to an observation deck on the SEG tower. I saw factories and dorms from horizon to horizon. Now the architecture feels indeed much more like Dubai, with half of the city area being rebuilt since then.
We have extremely good, world class urban planning. Shenzhen is one of a very few cities in China with own independent urban planning office. Those guys, city planners, indeed have genuine authority on that, and they did overrule local party officials and the mayor's office a number of times in the past.
Infrastructure is great. Despite of population of around 20 million, you don't feel it in daily life at all. The traffic is very light for the city of this size. The metro works great, except for rare pileups.
The city spent more money on hosting the 2011 Universiade than most counties spend on entire Olympics. Yet, it went completely unnoticed outside of China. Even inside of China itself it was barely noted.
Everybody credit the city for being a manufacturing supergiant now, yet few people know that the manufacturing has been in great decline through the decade. Today's Shenzhen manufacturing output is like 1/3 of what it was during its peak in 2010.
In my entire life, I only met 5 Shenzhen natives. Though there are a lot of people who were there for 20+ years.
The city, and especially Baoan had terrible crime statistics in the past, but now it is one of the safest one in China. The peace however only came at the price of putting a policeman every 100 metres.
The city had next no no nightlife just a year ago, and it is common for all kinds of entertainment establishments to close very early. Even designated "night market" areas work at most until 20:00 at weekends. This is probably a legacy from times when street crime was rife, second to it being a "working man's city"
The demographics of the city is equally eclectic. You meet of people from all over the region, yet by Chinese standards locals are not counted as "high end." Lots of people who came here as labourers, with just vocational school diploma in the pocket.
There are very few people here who can speak English, much less than in Shanghai or Beijing. The city is still very international, but with most of foreigners being out of the Sinosphere. There some illegal migrants who spill over here from Guangzhou.
10 years ago, nearly all foreigners in the city were either engineers from less well off places in Eastern Europe, or people in the sourcing business from the West. Now, there is kinds of a demographic reversal. Lots of weird drifters from the West, and more permanent migrants from the East.