Evaluation for the Development of Urban Agglomeration Integration: A Case Study of Pearl River Delta

With the advancement of urbanization, urban agglomerations have become a main carrier of China's development. As the ultimate stage of urban agglomeration, the realization of urban agglomeration integration (UAI) plays a dominant role in regional prosperity. Appropriate evaluation of UAI could monitor the integration level and guide its coordinated development. However, little attention has been paid to UAI evaluation research. To this end, this study proposes a comprehensive evaluation model to investigate UAI via the entropy method blended with TOPSIS. Furthermore, utilizing grey relational analysis (GRA), critical dimensions of UAI are also identified to provide concrete evidence. Finally, the proposed model is applied to evaluate the UAI of the Pearl River Delta (PRD), and the main results are as follows: (1) The development trend of the overall UAI in the PRD has increased in fluctuation during the research period, achieving a "good" degree; (2) Except for the policy measures integration (0.882), the integration values for other dimensions are in the range of 0.6 to 0.8 in 2020, reflecting a fairly high level; (3) The infrastructure integration has a major effect on UAI. These findings are favorable in providing references for understanding the current situation of UAI in China, which are of considerable practical significance.