Revisiting the regional sustainable development from the perspective of multi-system factor flows–Evidence in the Yangtze River Delta of China

With the advancement of globalization and the interactions between cities globally, the region becomes a basic unit to break through the bottleneck of development and it is becoming a complex system that is inseparable from diverse factor flows. These flows reflect the interaction and can facilitate complementary advantages between cities but will also result in the unreasonable allocation of resources and unbalanced development. To achieve sustainable integration among cities within a region, different factor flows require high-frequency exchange while forming a coordinated effect. This research takes the Yangtze River Delta of China as the research scope, using geospatial analysis, social network analysis, and quantitative statistical analysis methods, selecting representative factor flows such as personnel, information, technology, and capital from 2010 to 2019 to observe the development and integration process within this region. It mainly discusses the development trend, spatial structure and differences of factor flows, the evolution of regional interaction networks, and the interrelationships of different factors to summarize the overall development process comprehensively and find some points that are not conducive to regional sustainable development from the perspective of interaction degree and coordinated effect by some indicators. The research explores a representative and densely populated region in China to provide certain references for regions worldwide through some policy implications.