This study takes the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) as the research area, constructs evaluation indicator systems for regional advantages and industrial structure optimization, and uses the improved Criteria Importance Through Inter-criteria Correlation method, coupling coordination degree model, and spatial econometric model to study the spatiotemporal distribution and factors of the coupling coordination degree between the two systems in each city. It finds that regional advantages and industrial structure optimization in the GBA are fluctuating upward, with uneven distribution among cities; the distribution of coordination level of the two systems is high on the east bank and low on the west bank around the Pearl River Estuary, and most cities are slightly uncoordinated and basically coordinated; from a spatial perspective, the coordination level of the two systems has a significant spatial positive correlation, with Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou playing a radiating and driving role; in terms of factors, the economic development level, fixed capital stock, and transportation infrastructure help coordinate the two systems, while the proportion of employed population and information technology infrastructure have an inhibitory effect.
Zhang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.