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Well these certainly are megacities and there is an enormous variation in the quality of life of the citizens within each. I have never been to Mexico City and really hope to visit soon, so take my assumptions/comparison with a bowl of salt, but I would lean towards China assuming you are ok with the govt rule.
Economy Guangzhou Climate Mexico City is cooler suits me better
Crime Guangzhou wins, and by far. I understands that Mexico City isn't the worse of what Mexico has to offer in the crime department, it is still one of the most unsafe capital cities in the world.
Cuisine Tie. I am not a fan of Mexican fan, and authentic Chinese can be a little too "hard to swallow" for a westerner. That said, nothing stops you from cooking the food you like.
Public Transit Guangzhou has a better, more recent and safer public transit system
Attractions Tie. Both cities has assetsprovided you're into what they have to offer.
Scenery Guangzhou wins. MC has some nice or nicer areas, but most of it is concrete chaos.
Health Care Tie. Not great, "be healthy or be wealthy"
Pollution Tie. Both cities are pollution hot spots
Which of these megacities do you think offer a higher quality of life for its citizens overall?
Rate the following:
Economy: Guangzhou is part of an extremely economically dynamic region. I am not sure how it's GDP compares with that of Mexico City, as Mexico City's GDP is quite high too. I'm not really positive, but considering the region Guangzhou is a part of, it looks to overall be more economically dynamic.
Climate: Guangzhou's climate looks quite similar to that of a Florida city. That being said, I think I would prefer Mexico City's year round warm day, cool evening climate with a relatively more consistent temperature, thanks to Mexico City's location at altitude.
Crime: Guangzhou is safer, as many major Chinese cities are among the world's safest.
Cuisine: Mexico City is the hub city of one of the most celebrated countries for gastronomy in the world, featuring multiple restaurants in the world top 50 and an outstanding street food scene. I would guess the food scene in Guangzhou would be pretty impressive too, but Mexico City would be a cut above. Frankly, I probably ate better there than I have in any city in the world, but in an objective sense, at least, cities like Beijing and Hong Kong would be more likely to be peers of Mexico City for food than Guangzhou, which while massive, I think is still more of a regional city in China overall.
Public Transit: I would guess Guangzhou. Mexico City has the largest used, maybe most expansive/impressive metro system in all of Latin America, and maybe one of the more impressive in the world. However, I believe Guangzhou also has one of the Top 10 metro systems in the world from ridership, lines etc. I also believe that they are likely newer trains that run more regularly, and the metro is also probably safer.
Attractions: I would guess that Mexico City has more to see from a tourism standpoint overall-However, with that being said, Guangzhou would be very hotly competitive here I think too, also offering a lot. If we consider the fact that Guangzhou has so many major cities within proximity to it as well, that would also probably change the narrative...
Scenery: I guess it depends on what you are looking for. Guangzhou is probably prettier within immediate city limits although I find Mexico City's biodiversity to be just spectacular-Guangzhou probably has somewhat of the same natural charms as Hong Kong, not necessarily coastal, but with a wide river flowing out to see from it. Further out in the region as a whole though, Mexico City's scenery is probably more dynamic (volcanoes, biomes, etc.)
Health Care: Not really sure here.
Pollution: My guess would be Mexico City has cleaner air overall-that said-it's not certain-I know Hong Kong has relatively clean air, but I would guess Guangzhou being further inland and part of mainland China would be worse-I'm not positive though. Mexico City air isn't great, but in general, North American cities, even the poorly rated ones here, seem to be lower on overall air pollution scales.
For the criteria you provided, I went with Guangzhou for 3, 2 were tied or I wasn't sure about, and Mexico City for 3. That being said, while all of these can certainly be considered, I don't know that any necessarily can directly be correlated with Quality of Life, which is subjective of course.
On that, I would say the following: That Mexico City residents probably overall have more personal income/wealth, including amongst middle class residents, but that Guangzhou has less extreme issues with poverty, environment, safety, etc., and that as a result, for typical middle, and lower class residents especially, Guangzhou would offer a better Quality of Life than Mexico City would.
With that being said however, while I do really want to visit Guangzhou and other cities in this area-as a visitor, Mexico City is a place I am absolutely obsessed with-it is a part of my global Big 3 (with the others being London and Beijing-for degree of experiences/offerings/atmosphere for a visitor/the major cities I would have an alien visit to develop an understanding of our world (in that hypothetical scenario).
Economy Guangzhou Climate Mexico City is cooler suits me better
Crime Guangzhou wins, and by far. I understands that Mexico City isn't the worse of what Mexico has to offer in the crime department, it is still one of the most unsafe capital cities in the world.
Cuisine Tie. I am not a fan of Mexican fan, and authentic Chinese can be a little too "hard to swallow" for a westerner. That said, nothing stops you from cooking the food you like.
Public Transit Guangzhou has a better, more recent and safer public transit system
Attractions Tie. Both cities has assetsprovided you're into what they have to offer.
Scenery Guangzhou wins. MC has some nice or nicer areas, but most of it is concrete chaos.
Health Care Tie. Not great, "be healthy or be wealthy"
Pollution Tie. Both cities are pollution hot spots
A few points I'll debate: Crime. I would agree that Guangzhou performs much better than Mexico City here, but Mexico City certainly isn't one of the most unsafe capital cities in the world, or even in North America-crime rates confirm this from a numbers standpoint, and also just the level of wealth and stability present in many sections of the city that make innocent bystanders unlikely to be near violent crime. Then, you have dozens of capitals in Africa, the Middle East, etc. that I would consider less safe for sure for the average visitor. Frankly, there are a fair number of American downtowns that I would feel less safe wandering at night than MC. I will agree with you though on Guangzhou safety-wise overall-Chinese cities are at or above even the levels of safety felt in Western Europe, Scandinavian, etc. cities.
Scenery: Don't get me wrong, I guess this could be true in certain parts of the center city, but lets not forget, there are areas 15 miles from the Zocalo that look like this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ce...1!4d-99.253149
I also wonder, though perhaps incorrectly, if Guangzhou has neighborhoods that are similarly park like and leafy to the likes of Coyoacan, Chapultepec, Condesa, etc.
Guangzhou like a lot of cities in China looks great and modern at a first glance, but as you dig deeper you realize its a mess.
Mexico faces biases when it comes to Americans, most Americans would pick a toilet somewhere in Asia over anything Mexican because the concensus is Mexico is dirty, poor, lawless, terrible, just terrible while the picture of that toilet in Asia has plenty of shinny skyscrapers hence it must be automatically modern and civilized.
Yet very few Americans have ventured into the REAL Mexico past those crime ridden desert border towns or the fake resort of Cancun.
I have visited Mexico city as well as a substantial amount of cities in the US and Europe and I would pick Mexico city for urban livability over a lot of cities in Europe and specially the US.
I would NEVER pick LA over Mexico city for example, and Mexico city is far more desirable than suburban sprawls like Houston. Yet I doubt many Americans know this.
Guangzhou does not offer the parks, architectural heritage, interesting neighborhoods that Mexico city offers. Guangzhou offers like Dubai, tons of shopping malls and shinny skyscrapers and the father you get from that, the more you start facing the real face of China. Poverty a gallore, inequality, opression, many Chinese still live in terrible poverty and this is only visible once one leaves the shinny, photoworthy parts of the city.
While this is also true in Mexico, I find that is expected so it does not upset.
Mexico city on the other hand offers multiple dimensions
you want American experience, go to Santa Fe district full of shopping malls and skyscrapers.
If you want Europe, go to the old Spanish historic Center like mexicans call it and the Castle district where the palace built by the Austrohungarians is.
If you want Native American stuff go to a lot of the southern part of the city with the floating markets and boats on the ancient Aztec lake, there you see markets with offerings to skeletons and all of that day of the dead stuff, you can also head to the pyramids outside the city.
If you want stereotypical Mexican go to Neza city, tons of average Mexicans everywhere *like China really but in Mexican*, taco stands, street markets and so on.
If you want hipster go to Coyoacan *Fridah kahlo land*, or head to Roma and Polanco, its an experience similar to that of living in Paris, Madrid or some major EU citizen.
Guangzhou is not as diverse, is more one themed.
Last edited by xiloponeums; 10-02-2019 at 03:00 AM..
I love Mexico City too-but have you been to Guangzhou or China at large to confirm this? In fairness-I think people could visit both the center of Mexico City or Guangzhou and not really get a full picture of what either city has to offer, nor some of the many challenges that both face, too.
China is an extremely diverse layered, country, that encompasses multiple major world regions and 1/4th of the world's population, and I don't think Guangzhou, even though it is newer, is any exception here. Keep in mind, that while Guangzhou has grown massively of late and is newer-Guangzhou and it's surrounding region has quite a bit of history-more than the other Pearl River Delta cities that surround it seems to have a certain level of importance in Chinese history, for quite a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Guangzhou
Economy Guangzhou no contest
Climate Mexico City obviously, Guangzhou's a mess
Crime Guangzhou
Cuisine Mexico City
Public Transit Guangzhou no contest
Attractions both have a lot being big cities, but Mexico City is a more interesting destination
Scenery tied, both have some nice scenery next to the urban belt
Health Care not a single idea
Pollution pretty tied, both bad, but I guess Guangzhou may feel worse due to the combination with a gloomy and muggy climate.
Guangzhou pollution isn't bad at all. Yes, China as a whole has serious pollution problems, but in terms of air quality, Guangzhou and Guangdong province are much better then say Shanghai or anything in northern China. The further north you go in China, the worse the pollution gets.
Now this is a far more contested versus than the Rio vs Ho chi minh nonsense before. However, due to basic freedoms and iconic sites/parks/neighbourhoods I will feel far more appeased in Mexico City. As for the statement of Mexico City being among the most dangerous capitals in the world that is a-typical North American gobbledegook. Mexico City is actually safer than many large US metros.
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