I actually picked my current apartment because our office is on Line 10, and all of my colleagues live on Line 10. Previously, I lived in Xintiandi (awesome apartment/compound), but XTD is boring; Hongqiao Lu (I liked it at first because it felt less urban, but the food options kind of suck); Shanghai Library (I sort of liked that place, but the landlady's dad got sick around the time I was getting ready to do a long US trip, so the dad moved in and we terminated the lease). In any event, when I came back last year, I focused on Jiaoda because I sort of liked the area. I honestly had no idea that Xujiahui exit 15 was 200 meters closer than Jiaoda exit 2, and didn't really care because I had a low opinion of both Xujiahui Station and Line 9 (insanely crowded because lots of people live in Songjiang now and seemed redundant to Line 10 IMO). However, I've recently become a convert. While the crowds are just as annoying as ever, it has better connections to the n/s lines than Line 10 (e.g. Line 10 crosses Line 7, but there is no way to connect between the two), and getting to PVG isn't that painful (though I still usually figure out a way to position myself in Jing'an when going to PVG because I love the #2 bus). Line 9 to Line 2 is also more efficient than Line 10 to Line 2 when going to Lujiazui.