For years before heading to the University of California, Berkley in 2011, Zhao Cong felt destined for a career in the music industry. But that year, he told his mom, a piano teacher, he was going to study architecture.

After graduation, Zhao got his first job at Gensler Shanghai. Three years later, he continued with his architecture design career in his hometown Shenzhen.

Back at home, the decade-long memory of learning the piano, and throngs of businesses big and small are what he says fueled his entrepreneurship.

"On weekends in Shanghai, you can have brunch and go to a concert or music festival," Zhao recalled. "But in Shenzhen, you feel like people basically work through the whole week, and they rarely have an idea of a weekend."

In Zhao's words, Shenzhen is a city full of overtime-work culture, as your classmates and friends are likely too busy to join you after work.

Shenzhen is widely regarded as a city that has developed the fastest in the New China era of the last four decades.

Zhao said Shenzhen’s progress is largely attributed to many endeavors, like sweat and tears by generations of people.

"Many work so hard in the day and cry at night when they go home," he said. "The next day, they motivate themselves, walk into the crowded subway that may take them an hour to get to work."

But some commuters take advantage of a highly efficient system in Shenzhen, as Zhao referred to how fast mainlanders can get the travel permit to go to Hong Kong and Macao.

"It takes just two minutes after inserting the ID card into the self-service machine," he cited.

Among these travelers shuttling on a daily basis between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Raymond Yang spends five minutes each morning walking to the port. From there it takes about an hour to get to his engineering job in Hong Kong.

Yang and his wife Zhu Xunxun are like many Chinese couples who choose to live near the port to ensure the most family time when they work on both sides.

In the morning when they go downstairs, Zhu said, they head to different directions. But they sometimes create romantic moments.

"If I work a bit late, which meets his time, I travel one more station at the port and wait for him there. Then we go back home together hand in hand," she said.

They met each other almost 10 years ago while in school, but went to college in different cities.

Time had been a great witness and test of their long-distance relationship. Four years later, they decided to move to Shenzhen, where they say their hearts are.

"Time had been guiding us, telling us what we really wanted and somehow showing us the right direction," Zhu said.

Over the past decades, young entrepreneurs and job seekers across the country gather in Shenzhen, in which Yang said is full of opportunities that drive those to move fast, and the fast pace can bring them better returns.

"The pace of the city is not driven by them, but it first comes to how many opportunities the city creates for them," Yang reasoned.

For Zhao, Shenzhen Speed is more about how Shenzhen’s policymakers value these young talents and listen to the public and enterprises.

They believe in talents who can do better than them and empower them, Zhao said. "As for a building design, they believe professional and top-level ideas, which I think is the best part of the city."