5 - Development of Pearl River Delta as a Mega-city Region

Summary

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF MEGA-CITY REGION AND THE RELATED APPLICATION

Mega-city region is not a new concept, but with the rapid process of globalization, it has acquired a new definition. According to recent studies, the mega-city region can be treated as cities without considering the new urban forms that are emerging into spaces under conditions of current globalization. For instance, they can be regarded as global city-regions rather than global or world cities that are the growth nodes of the world economy. Also called mega-city regions, these urban forms can often include several cities and therefore may be polycentric in structure. The interlocking network model has been applied to analysis of mega-city regions in the POLYNET project.

If we make a comparison of the development models of the traditional and the contemporary integration of resources for urban regional development, we can simply divide them into two categories the traditional model and contemporary mega-city.

The Traditional Models of Development

For years, the most influential theories concerning regional development used to be centre-periphery and “flying geese” concepts. Take the PRD studies, for instance, among all these works, Ezra Vogel's analysis of a development model using the “theory of dependence” has been so popular that they have received a lot of attention from regional planning specialists as well development researchers. In a summary of the PRD's development approaches, Zhang even concluded in accordance with Vogel's research results that Hong Kong as the economically powerful centre has greatly pushed forward the whole regional change, or the region as periphery has otherwise been dependent on Hong Kong in a stage from simple economic growth to the overall development. The other sub-centres in PRD around the main ones like Hong Kong and Guangzhou have then obviously had a role-play of “one-step-ahead” effect as earlier “flying geese” for the whole country in China.