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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

I know it's just a dream, but why can't we build one here? Maybe if one of those hackerspaces took off... <replace 'here' with any location>

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TechShop, there is very little software industry there. It's an industrial town, and there are/were parts of it that are off limits to foreigners. Sure, you can source parts to every gadget and machine you would want to build in Hua Qiang Bey, but there is no tech "scene", for lack of a better word, not many locals using their own wares to make new stuff. It's an industrialist city geared toward exports.

What do you mean "off limits to foreigners"? I travel to china regularly, and have never encountered an "off limits" section of any city. *

* I am very obviously a foreigner in China.

Are you ethnic Chinese?

There are entire parts of Boa'An that you will be told not to venture into. I have had taxis refuse to take me there, I thought it had to do with the SEZ red/green class restrictions, but we were once told to turn around a private vehicle, ca 2006-2007, fwiw.

A friend of mine who lived in China from 2004-2007 said the off limits places were due to crime, and that foreigners were not allowed because they were likely to be targeted.

I never speculated on the reasons, just that I wasn't allowed in.

Shenzhen hosts the biggest Software company in China: TENCENT. Also the ecosystem is changing fast with a year of Startup Weekend and HAXLR8R over there.

Good to hear that. I love Shenzhen, not as cultured as many other Chinese cities, but it was fun.

dude, Shenzhen came a long way and is the future of China (I lived in 5 cities across the country in the past 12 years). Design is all over the map and is going to swallow HK in the next 10-20 years.

I've heard this case for Shanghai, not so much for Shenzhen. Interesting. The one thing I personally think is holding HK back from further flourishing is the pollution (thus Singapore seemingly having an edge at the moment). I imagine Shenzhen will face similar issues as it continues to grow?

Hong Kong's biggest problem is quality of life. Unless they can fix housing, life in Hong Kong is going to remain stunted.

To do that, you need a lot of buyers nearby - not just individual hackers, but workshops/factories buying the components in bulk. The availability of prototyping resources there is just a side-effect of the manufacturing supply chain; it's not economically possible to have all of this just for the prototyping and hobbyists.

Because you don't have a consumption downstream industries?

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