In recent years, compared with the rapid rise of urban agglomerations such
as Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration
is slightly insufficient in terms of development speed and quality. Considering the
important strategic position of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration in the
process of socialist modernization with Chinese characteristics, it is imperative to
explore the problems in the coordinated development of regional economy. In this
paper, the entropy weight method, combined with the gravity model and the social
network analysis method, are used to simultaneously investigate the evolution of
spatial patterns of economic linkages and intellectual capital linkages in the Yangtze
River Delta urban agglomeration and the cities within the agglomeration from 2012
to 2017. The research results show that the evolution of intellectual capital linkages in
the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration is less active than its economic linkages.
From the perspective of urban performance, although Jiangsu Province is in a leading
position in urban economic linkages and intellectual capital linkages, the progress
is slightly lower than that in Zhejiang Province. In addition, the overall economic linkages and intellectual capital linkages of Anhui Province are relatively weaker
compared with other cities.