Expats Living in Shanghai

Where is the best place to rent an apartment or house?
There is of course no formula to calculate where is the best place to live. Much depends on personal choice and of course on budget. Nevertheless, there are some obvious trends on where people tend to settle down after moving to Shanghai. Here some of the very basics:

• Young professionals, couples or singletons, generally tend to live in downtown Shanghai Puxi side. In which part of downtown obviously depends on the location of offices and thus what kind of transport they want to choose: bus, metro or taxi.
• Families with children attending the expatriates schools more than often live in West Shanghai (Hongqiao/Minhang/Qingpu) or Pudong depending on which school their children attend.
• Couples with young children below school age live all over the city in downtown, Lujiazui and even Hongqiao/Pudong.
• Senior couples with no children, or children who only visit during boarding school holidays often seem to prefer the more ‘expatriate’ lifestyle of the Hongqiao / Pudong villa complexes.