[jhancock]

The high level description for Tokyo's management could apply to Shanghai. Replace Tokyo's "elected mayor/assembly" with "party member administrators". Each Shanghai district has its own management structure.

The vague description "run by the central government as a province rather than a city" is uninformative.

Lived in Shanghai 10 years. The city is well run for something of its magnitude. Mostly competent leadership and cultural alignment.

[seanmcdirmid]

Shanghai usually gets the CPC members running it who will lead the country in the future. So...the future president of China is likely to be a party secretary of Shanghai at some point (like Xi in 2007). Any cadre who is favored and wants to be seen making modern impacts will be sent to SH.

Southern Chinese cities are better run than Northern Chinese cities. Not just Shanghai, but Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wenzhou...heck, even Kunming has better drivers and traffic than you'll see in Beijing.

[alephnerd]

> heck, even Kunming has better drivers and traffic than you'll see in Beijing.

But, conversely, a poor farmer in Yunnan was less likely to choose to become a migrant worker in Kunming instead of a Tier 1 metro.

IMO, Beijing's craziness can be attributed to the fact that it is the economic center for much of Northern China - and a number of migrants from large neighboring laggard states like Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, and others ended up gravitating to Beijing.

> Shanghai usually gets the CPC members running it who will lead the country in the future

Not anymore. That was more of a Jiang- and Hu-era bias.

> a party secretary of Shanghai at some point (like Xi in 2007)

Xi's tenure in Shanghai was transitory (less than a year from what I remember) and imo was due to his previous role in Zhejiang.

> Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wenzhou...

Those are all closely connected with Shanghai economically speaking, and all part of Zhejiang or Jiangsu.

[alephnerd]

It's a broad statement but the fact that Shanghai is a 直辖市 (and imo Tokyo is in a similar position) is a major difference from other megacities in Asia.

It gives Shanghai (and Tokyo) a munucipal budget and fiscal autonomy that most other megacities in Asia tend to lack.