Many young white collar workers have chosen to lead a inter-city lifestyle in the Yangtze River Delta, where neighboring cities have close cultural ties and high-degrees of integration, said Zhu Ronglin, a Yangtze Delta development expert from the Development Research Center of the State Council.

Long distance commuting across cities or even provinces is supported by the highly developed transportation network, and the frequent staff flow will further promote the development of industries, markets, management, education, transportation and communications in the region, added Zhu.

Taking up 3.7 percent of the nation's total land area and home to 16.7 percent of China's population, the Yangtze River Delta contributes about 21.19 percent of the country's GDP, according to the 2016 Shanghai Blue Book released by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Yu Hai, a sociology professor at Fudan University, added that the world-standard Hongqiao transportation hub in Shanghai has been playing a pivotal role in the region's transportation network as it has an airport, a high-speed train station, high-speed roads and two metro lines.

Major cities in the Yangtze River Delta region can be reached within one hour from the Hongqiao hub. Almost all the cities are located a three-hour high-speed train ride away.

The Yangtze River Delta city cluster.

"The transportation infrastructure needs a systematic, integrated and humanized management in order for it to perform at its best, and this should be a focus for future development in this region," said Zhu.

Gu Xiaoming, a professor from Fudan University in Shanghai, said there is still a long way to go in balancing all kinds of resources among neighboring cities and it may take years, even decades, for the development and maturation of a region.

"The resources for infrastructure, education and medical treatment are very imbalanced across the region, so people's choices are influenced by the good resources rather than their personal preferences," Gu said.

Zhu said the integration of the region might also lead to the restructuring of the administration division so that people in the area can move about to find work and homes more freely between cities.

A guideline issued by the State Council in May called for the 26 cities in the region, including Shanghai, parts of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces to develop into a city cluster with "global influence" by 2030. Eight cities in Anhui province are new members of the cluster.

"The cluster will work together to push forward the integration of the region where capital, talent, technology and innovation can flow freely," said Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong in a recent group interview.

wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn