a grand thesis! :) One great characteristics of Metropolitan is

they dont care where are you from. In New York, actually Manhattan, a significant portion of population are not native New Yorkers. Quite naturally, everyone living/working in New York call themselves New Yorkers. If you ask the fashionable young people on the streets in the subway, you have a good chance to meet a German, a French, or girls from South Carolina.

This kind of inclusivity and openness is what Shanghai, or Beijing for that matter, lacks. Hope it wont be a long learning curve...