Urban Agglomeration Spatial Planning in the Yangtze River Delta

Globalization promotes the urban development in the whole world, while regionalization stimulates the formation of more and more mega-city regions, and localization makes urban agglomerations have increasingly distinct local features.The urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta is the primary global region in China during the globalizing process and it also faces the restrictions in terms of land and water resources, environment pollution,and ecological carrying capacity.With these trends,planning on the city-region spatial development in the Yangtze River Delta shall emphasize the fallowings:developing the global city,building the mega-city regio'n,constructing the networked cities,planning corridor cities, and creating the competitive global city-regions.Firstly,it is required to con- struct the global city of Shanghai according to the requirements and features of globalization so as to promote economic globalization and social transformation of Shanghai and to expand its metropolitian space and function as a global city to Ningbo,Suzhou,and Nantong.Secondly, it is required to promote the construction of mega-city region in the Yangtze River Delta in accordance with the trend of regionalization so as to achieve a networked spatial structure and an improved supporting system to match it Thirdly,it is required to fully exert the local features,to construct corridor cities of Ningbo,Taizhou,and Wenzhou as well as the networked cities of Suzhou,Wuxi,and Changzhou so as to promote the regional integration and urban interaction.Accordingly,the following large-scale projects shall be constructed: 1.the effective communication systems,such as airport,highway traffic system,and city rail transit;2.the transportation-logistics systems,such as large-scale deepwater port,container feeding port and express unclogging harbor traffic system;3.the regional traffic network,such as cross-sea and cross-river passages,and inter-city rail transit system;4.the information technology projects,such as information port,information network,financing service network,and technical support network; 5.the ecological and environmental protection projects,such as the comprehensive control management of the Taihu Lake and its waterfront areas,and ecological projects;6.the energy resource guarantee.