Living in Shenzhen: attractive for creatives?

Like many cities across the globe, Shenzhen is attempting to redevelop itself as a ‘creative city’. This policy concept can mean different things to different people. Strategies aiming at becoming a ‘creative city’ refer to attracting and developing cultural and creative industries like architecture, design, media, games, advertising, and of course, the arts. In this sense, creativity is often combined with affiliated concepts like innovation or knowledge-intensive business. But a ‘creative city’ is also often associated with having many cultural venues (museums, theatres, galleries, concert halls) and events (festivals, exhibitions), and with being a welcoming city for people from different backgrounds, with different lifestyles: a diverse and tolerant city. Most of all, ‘creative city’ strategies are about city branding: putting your city on the map as a hub of creative people, companies and ideas, which then hopefully will make your city more competitive and speed up its economic growth.