Incomes in Shaoxing are up there with nearby Hangzhou and Shanghai, but cost of housing is very low because the city has expanded a lot. Economic opportunity is high but it also makes it easy for "domestic migrants" from other workers to settle there and send their kids to school in Shaoxing (ie. less stringent hukou).

It has many historic neighbourhoods but is also improving the urban design of its new ones, there are canals everywhere.

Chen Niuqun, a Fujianese salesman, has lived in Germany, so has some basis for comparison when he declares his preference for Shaoxing. “In Europe at 6pm the streets are empty. Here it is just the beginning,” he says. And business culture is more relaxed than in many Chinese cities: he works an eight-hour day and takes his daughter to school in the mornings.

"But at what cost?" They say that it isn't insulated from nationwide issues around housing oversupply (according to them) and academic/economic competition stressing people out. But they also call shaoxing boring and micromanaged, using phrases like "careful pruning of daily existence" and "the controlled narrowness of urban China" that's "dictated by ageing cadres who leave little to chance". Of course it also mentions "mass surveillance". Reminds me a lot of certain perceptions of Singapore.

“It’s just boring,” mutters a young woman with a pierced lip.