The “Tech” of Two Cities: What Hong Kong Failed but Shenzhen Succeeded

Shenzhen used to be a tiny town of around 30,000 people, north of the then prosperous British colony, Hong Kong, in southern China. The story is certainly entirely different now that Shenzhen is comparable to, if it has not already outshone its once proud neighbor. Shenzhen’s Nanshan district, home to a huge hi-tech industrial park, is now China’s richest, with a higher per capita GDP than even capitalist Hong Kong. This article will compare the two cities through the use of CIV city cases. It will discuss whether the institutional differences can help to explain the respective growth stories of the cities. Afterwards, the article will consider the prospects of the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone, a national-level initiative to combine the core strengths of the two cities in an attempt to boost the existing technology center to a new level before a conclusion is drawn.