Great public transit. Affordable housing. Huge variety of delicious food. Low crime. People who care enough about the social good to wear masks in crowded places during a pandemic.
Low crime is simply not true. Most crimes are not reported or swept under the rug as local statistics are reported back to the central government and no one wants to look bad. But wow if you have Weibo you can see some pretty horrible stuff daily before it’s deleted. Nothing worse than seeing 2 woman hacked to death with an axe because of road rage. Cheap food in China comes with a lot of trade offs such as quality. Many shops recycle left over hotpot for the following day. Gutter oil is a real thing. Fake meats or meats from other animals is a real thing.
Every country has homeless people. There are truly homeless people in China. You don't need to put it in quotes, either.
Truly homeless exist, but statistically and visibly much less problem, because typical local gov very proactive/interventionist in moving them off streets... truely urban homelessness is like... not a really a social option... no right to be homeless. VS in west where homeless don't get cleaned up unless for the occassional politically motivated reasons. In PRC it's default, homeless get detected fast -> get moved into local shelter system where system ids them and tries to guilt trip family into caretaker roles -> can come with modest stipend to cover costs.
The government wouldn't allow encampments, so how can you even tell?
The claim was:
> Urban life in China, excluding pandemic times, is better than urban life in the states.
“Showing off main cities” is a perfectly reasonable thing to do to support this claim.