One is a clean and green island in the sun, orderly, efficient and neat, populated by hard-working, highly educated and Westernised people from other South and East Asian countries. The other is a mountainous outpost on the southern edge of China, bright, noisy, polluted and crowded, teeming with an entrepreneurial and resilient working class.
Both are former British colonial possessions that have seen remarkable economic development over the past generation, major regional business centres with high standards of living that depend on trade with their neighbours and the West.
This is the real tale of two cities. Financial Secretary Antony Leung may not have been referring to Hong Kong and Singapore when he quoted from Charles Dickens' novel in his Budget speech on Wednesday, but the two share many similarities and are often talked about in the same breath.
Like Hong Kong, Singapore's economy is slumping, prices are falling and the government is running a deficit. The mood of the average citizen in both places is understandably grim.
'Singaporeans are very bearish about the Singapore economy, Hong Kong people are bearish about the Hong Kong economy,' said Eddie Wong, chief Asian economist at ABN Amro. 'Both see no solution to the economic problems in the near term.'
Their problems, however, are being tackled by the two governments in very different ways. While Mr Leung hiked taxes in the 2003-04 budget, Singapore held off on making any changes to taxes in its budget released a week ago.