If you want to choose a city to live in, Guangzhou or Shanghai?

When I went to Guangzhou, I didn't know anyone there, and my understanding of it was extremely limited. Not long after living there, I realized the open and inclusive atmosphere of this city. Comparing Guangzhou with Shanghai has become something I often do when traveling in Guangzhou. In my opinion, Guangzhou is characterized by the richness of urban spatial forms. Tianhe in CBD, villages in the city at the grass-roots level, Yide Road where vendors gather, romantic sand surface and Baiyun Mountain in the city. Each form is complete and unique, not the product of collage and grafting. For a long time, I always thought that Hakka village was just a place name, and the map represented an elevated intersection and its surroundings. It was not until I got off at the wrong station and walked through this place that I found that there was a "village in the city" whose real name was "Hakka Village". It was full of interest and considerable scale, which really made me feel the tolerance and rich life style of Guangzhou. For decades, facing the goal of urbanization, Guangzhou has chosen a more pragmatic and eclectic route. Therefore, the scattered villages in the city have been preserved, and an overhead line that is sufficient but not wide and spectacular has been built. Shanghai, on the other hand, chooses a route radiating outward from the center, washing away all non-urban elements along the way. Magnificence and style are also its requirements for roads, bridges and various "landmark buildings".

When I first arrived in Shamian four and a half years ago, I found that there were still empty houses in this beautiful little flying field. Subtropical colonial style houses, with broken windows of iron bars hidden by trees, have a unique artistic conception. I imagined its fate in Shanghai, then remembered Xintiandi and Duolun Road, and then urged myself to cherish my short life in Guangzhou. I have been to Sun Yat-sen Library several times. There are several dilapidated houses in that compound, and the foundation is covered with grass. Every time children play games in the open space, people go in and out with books and walk under two tall plantains. I think that all the values of a public cultural building are so much that people can use it comfortably and integrate with it. How many public buildings are there in Shanghai?

Guangzhou is also a city more suitable for travel than Shanghai. Also a city along the Yangtze River, it has a much longer binjiang road than Shanghai, and these roads are built close to pedestrians-there are wide and barrier-free sidewalks on the riverside side of the road. From Binjiang West Road in Haizhu District to the west, pedestrians can walk on a flat road and enjoy the river view all the way to Sun Yat-sen University. In Shanghai, Lujiazui's so-called "Riverside Avenue" is a strange building. It is actually not a road, but a park with a width of less than one kilometer. Visitors have to enter from a special entrance and walk through a small slope to enter a long "pool" wrapped in tiles and pulled along the river-welcome to "Binjiang Avenue"! Here, you can watch the "World Architecture Expo" on the other side of the Bund. As a rare tourist of "Greater Shanghai", you can sigh its landmarks and history, take a photo there and watch the huge LED advertisements across the river. However, walking on this "Riverside Avenue" is not so worry-free. Because of its irregular shape and many steps up and down, it is not so wide compared with the green belt with some flowers and plants built with stones next to it. This "Riverside Avenue" is more precisely a "viewing pool" customized for the Bund complex on the other side. Its role is almost limited to making the logo of the Bund colonial complex printed on more people's minds through on-site observation and photography, rather than making citizens close to the mother river.