GUANGZHOU, China -- China's city of Shenzhen, home to the country's first special economic zone, may have begun to lose its luster. Its population decreased for the first time in 2022, in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also as a result of changes in local government policies.
The population contraction will ease some of Shenzhen's problems, such as traffic congestion and high rents, but the city's vaunted growth -- which once enticed young people from all over China -- is no longer the main driver.
