The development of city clusters in China is somewhat similar to the formation of the megalopolis in the United States, as described by Gottmann (1961). However, there are some differences in terms of the number of cities in an area, their infrastructure, and the services they provide to the region, as compared to the US. City clusters in China tend to be much more concentrated and densely populated, with little room for natural areas; for example, the distance between cities is often less than 10 km in the Pearl River delta. In the city of Guangzhou, spacing between residential buildings is so restricted that they are often referred to as “handshaking” buildings. Also, there is no clear, functional division of infrastructures among the cities, due to a lack of coordination between city planners. Cities within a cluster often compete for available natural resources, investment, and regional funding for infrastructure development and improvement. For example, five separate international airports have been constructed in recent years in the Pearl River delta (including Hong Kong and Macau). Better intercity cooperation could avoid such wasteful redundancy in the future, resulting in a more efficient regional economy (Bao 2005).