Abstract:

A general survey on urban development trend shows that globalization promotes the development of global cities, regionalization nurtures megacity, and localization ensures the characteristics of individual urban agglomerations. The common characteristics of urban development are globalization, the development of global cities and the increasing demand for facetoface communication. The urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta plays a very important part in China, and is the primary global region and globalcityforming area in the country's process of involving in the globalization. Thus, the spatial distribution of cities in the Yangtze River Delta should follow the globalization trend: improving the development of global cities, constructing megacity regions, establishing network cities, and planning corridor cities.

Key words: global city regions, the Yangtze River Delta, urban agglomeration