Specialization and Regional Spacial Integration: A Case Study of Yangtze River Delta

With the rapid development of urbanization, the emergence functional specialization of urban cities has come to the attention of researches, which becomes an impetus to spacial integration of that region. This paper measures the specialization of sixteen core cities in Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations with spatial division of function index and finds out that specialization is at a relatively low level and presents a continued momentum of decline in fluctuations. Based on the empirical analysis, this paper studies the internal mechanism of the specialization of urban agglomeration and regional spatial integration. And only by establishing a cooperative and complementary regional economic relationship between regional spatial diversification and urban spatial specialization could achieve regional integration.