Obviously it comes down to personal tastes, but of places I've visited in China, I think Hangzhou would offer a good balance between interest, nightlife, work or business opportunities, culture, travel opportunities etc. The summer would be horribly hot and sticky, though. I like Beijing, too, but I'm not sure I want to live in a place with a huge expat population and a tendency to look down on people from other places.

Two cities often quoted as attractive places are Dalian and Qingdao. Although Dalian seems nice enough, I don't think I'd put it near the top of my list as it just seems a bit dull, and the urban area has quite a disjointed feel. I like Qingdao more, but I can't help feeling it lacks soul. Maybe there are too many outsiders there.

Away from the east coast, I've less experience, but I have been to a few places. Wuhan seems like it would be an interesting, if not particularly comfortable, experience, and Xian has character and history but doesn't seem like a place to work. Urumqi has a unique feel becasue of the ethnic make up of the population, but I think it would seem limited quite quickly. Zhengzhou doesn't exactly get rave reviews, and I haven't seen much in several visits there to take a contrary view. There are quite a few interesting places nearby, though.

There are places (mainly in the west of China) that are more beautiful, clean, friendly and cheap, but they can also be poor places to work.

I haven't been to Shanghai or Guangzhou for years, so I won't comment on them.

What Chinese cities do people recommend for living and working?

There are some things to like about Shanghai, but I tend to feel that it combines the bad things you mentioned about Qingdao with the ones you mentioned from Beijing, and it's more expensive to boot. Still, there are a lot of job opportunities there that are going to be hard to find in just about any other city.

I always enjoyed Suzhou when I went there. Streets seemed a bit more lively than Hangzhou, which was just a bit too clean. I think there, however, a lot of the nicer expat jobs are also concentrated out in a new development area, which isn't too terribly far from the city center, but seems to be completely lifeless after working hours are over.

I think that's a problem of many cities in China (including Suzhou, I think). They set up these lifeless "development areas" miles from the city proper and you face the choice of living close to work, but in a place that's dull and inconvenient in most other ways, or you live in the city proper and suffer a horrible (and possibly dangerous) commute.

I wasn't even specifically referring to the development areas. Those are almost always holes. I felt that even in the city proper, Hangzhou felt a bit too sanitized for my tastes.

Insert standard "You know you've been in China too long when..." joke here.

I suppose Hangzhou is quite sanitized (though you did actually specifically refer to the development area) but most cities are aiming for the same thing. The thing I like most about Hangzhou is that there are lots of cool places not far out of town. I don't think you'd be short of weekend trip options.

Sorry, should be a bit more clear:

Hangzhou: Overly sanitized city-center.

Suzhou: Lifeless development area, but I think the city center is nice.