City size, industrial structure and urbanization quality—A case study of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration in China

Based on panel data of cities within China’s Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration (YRDUA) from 2008 to 2017, this paper uses the entropy method to evaluate urbanization quality and then panel data regression to analyze the relationship between city size, industrial structure, and urbanization quality. The main findings are as follows: (1) During 2008–2017, cities within the Yangtze River Delta have grown larger, the number of big cities and mega cities has increased, and urbanization has improved in quality. There are significant differences in the quality of urbanization and industrial structure among cities of different sizes within the region. (2) The impact of city size on the quality of urbanization shows an inverted U-shaped trend. Both the rationalization of industrial structure and the upgrading of industrial structure can positively affect urbanization quality. (3) However, the continuous expansion of city size will weaken the pulling effect of rationalization of industrial structure on urbanization quality. The upgrading of industrial structure can alleviate the crowding effects brought by city size on urbanization quality and enhance the scale effects on urbanization quality.