Zhang Ke moved to Chongqing a year ago, after spending two years in Beijing.

His salary as a civil servant in the city's Liangjiang New Area is two-thirds what he earned as a newspaper reporter in Beijing, but his life is much easier.

The 32-year-old recently bought a riverside apartment in downtown Chongqing for slightly more than 10,000 yuan ($1,600) per square meter, a fraction of the cost in either Beijing or Shanghai.