The coordinated development of urban and rural territorial systems has long been a scientific issue of concern in geography and socioeconomic development in China. Based on Territorial Function Theory, this paper establishes a theoretical framework to support the coordinated development of urban and rural territorial systems, analyzes the trend of functional evolution, discusses the impact of efficient allocation and orderly element flow on system equivalence development, and puts forward approaches and policy suggestions for equilibrium development in the future. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The evolution of urban and rural territorial functions has experienced four stages: rural to rural, rural to urban transition, rural to urban, and urban to urban. In this process, territorial functions have been developed to be hierarchical and advanced. (2) Functional evolution enables urban and rural comparative advantages to be transformed from value difference to value equivalence. Increasing the flow intensity and reconstructing the flow space have become the necessary conditions for the coordination of development. (3) Land is the most important resource in China, and land system reform is the key to achieving equivalence development of urban and rural territorial systems, thereby determining the future equilibrium development of the two systems.

The advent of a mobile society has led to profound changes in China’s traditional rural-urban pattern and called for new strategies for urban and rural governance. Based on a macro perspective of temporal and spatial evolution, this study analyzes the historical logics of rural-urban governance, explores the geographical patterns of challenges in China’s rural-urban governance, and finally puts forward targeted strategies for rural-urban governance toward integrated and sustainable development in China. From the historical perspective, the urban originates from the rural, and the connotation of rural, that is, a regional-scale outlook, rural-urban relations, and sociocultural interaction, forms the traditional approach to rural-urban governance. China’s rural-urban governance has evolved from antagonism toward integration. In terms of theoretical development, the turn toward mobility is an important driving factor shaping and promoting the transformation of research focus on rural-urban governance. The mobility of urban and rural factors has especially in recent decades brought extensive challenges for governance, which are highlighted by the disintegration of the stability of rural and urban structures, growing regional disparities in rural education levels, and serious aging and hollowing crises in rural areas. We therefore propose that rural-urban governance should give sufficient consideration to the convergence of wider interests; realize social potential through institutional, cultural and spatial restructuring; and attach importance to collaborative development and governance. And the transfer of rural problems to urban areas should be paid attention to by rural-urban governance. This research enriches the knowledge regarding the logics and patterns of China’s rural-urban governance from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is also helpful in the promotion of rural-urban integration and sustainable development, especially at a time when the mobility of social factors between rural areas and urban areas increasingly challenges traditional urban and rural governance and drives its evolution.

This paper uses the fifth and sixth census data and 2018 demographic statistics to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of the urbanization of county in China and the factors that influence the evolution. The paper reveals that the urbanization level of counties is a weak area in China’s overall urbanization. During the period from 2000 to 2010, the spatial patterns of the urbanization level of counties remained stable. Counties with high-level urbanization were concentrated in the coastal areas of the eastern region, while counties that experienced rapid urbanization were mainly located in the central and western regions. Regression analyses indicate that harsh natural endowments that constrain economic development are the most important factors that hinder the urbanization of county; these factors include marginalized locations far away from center cities, high altitudes, and a population with a low education level. This paper also compares two theoretical modes of new-type urbanization, nearby urbanization and remote urbanization, and argues that the new-type urbanization of county is the main form of nearby urbanization and provides an example of urbanization for developing countries worldwide.

It remains unclear on how transportation network interacts with economic network in an urban-rural agglomeration, while such knowledge is crucial for urban-rural system governance and sustainability. We explored such spatial interactions in the Zhongyuan Urban-Rural Agglomeration (ZURA) from 1995 to 2015. The structure of transportation network was measured by spatial syntax model, and that of economic network was gauged by improved gravity model. The associations between transportation and economic networks were investigated by conducting bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis. The global Moran’s I showed that the two networks were positively correlated from 1995 to 2015. The local Moran’s I identified “high-high” associations between transportation and economic networks around core cities in 1995, which further extended to surrounding cities. Our results reveal that peripheral cities with highly developed transportation system have little spatial economic impact on neighboring rural areas, while cities with low transportation accessibility restrained its external economic influence of neighboring cities and rural areas. Our findings shed light on future urban-rural system governance, where the “multi-center, unbalanced” growth patterns of economic network and the “multi-core, multi-directional” structure of transportation network are more likely to contribute to the sustainability of urban-rural systems.

China has entered a new stage of high-quality urbanization. Therefore, it is critical to grasp the latest population distribution and dynamics. Using mean-variance grading, Moran’s index, and the Theil index, this study compared the differences in population changes between 2010-2020 and 2000-2010 at the prefecture-level city scale based on census data to analyze the new trends in population evolution. We found that: (1) New growth poles of the population are inland provincial capitals, forming rapid-growing zones together with coastal urban agglomerations. Population growth in over 60% of the cities in the northern coastal urban agglomeration has slowed. (2) The scope of population loss in inland areas is constantly expanding. In the northeastern part of China, 92.7% of the cities have lost population, making this a typical population loss area. (3) Population shrinkage in the northeastern region and growth in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration show diffusion characteristics, while population patterns around the provincial capital are in a polarized stage. (4) The Theil index of population distribution increased, with 83.91% of differences coming from between groups, indicating that the gap between cities of different sizes has further expanded. This study provides scientific support for the coordinated promotion of nearby and remote urbanization.

The rural social space quality is an important indicator to measure the living standard and thinking ideas and so forth of rural residents in a certain region. In this paper, 213 administrative villages in Longxi County of the Loess Hilly Area, China are taken as evaluation units to construct the evaluation model of the rural social space quality. This paper deeply analyzed the variation patterns and their formation mechanism of the rural social space quality at a village scale, and proposed a governance model based on the rural social space quality. The results show that: (1) the social space quality levels of individual administrative villages show a gradually decreasing trend from the township seats to outward. The eastern part of Longxi County has a relatively high education level and living standard, and the western part has a relatively high population stability level and income level. (2) The rural social space quality is mainly in a ring structure, supplemented by the interlaced structure. The core area is the towns and their surrounding areas, while the transition area, marginal area, and other areas are expanded around the core area. (3) Social forces and spatial effects jointly shape the variation of the rural social space quality. Social organizations provide a driving force for the allocation of elements, and interweaving with the spatial effects lead to the differences in the social space quality. (4) The governance models of the rural social space quality are constructed based on the principles of retaining the rural “people”, optimizing the rural “land”, and developing the rural “industry”, so as to improve the rural centripetal force, core force, inner thrust, and source power.

Rural gentrification is deeply characterized by institutional context and spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Based on a diachronic field investigation, this paper constructs an analytical framework for gentrifying rural community development (GRCD) with a “community” theoretical perspective and analytical approach, defines the concept of GRCD, and analyzes the main characteristics, formation mechanism and regulation path of a typical gentrifying rural community in the Panyang River Basin of Bama County, Guangxi. Driven by factors such as the complex flow and heterogeneous living space practices of the host-guest community,the longevity “myth” led by commercial capital and consumption demand, and multiple action logics and desertification community governance, great changes have occurred in the social space and material landscape of the rural longevity community. Such changes include comprehensive reconstruction of the resident population, surface interaction and social separation of the host-guest community, residential structure change and settlement landscape renewal, and delocalization of the healing landscape and lifestyle changes. We propose policy insights in three areas: public and localization institutional arrangements, shared and comfortable gentrifying rural community making, and inclusive and synergistic gentrifying rural community governance. Through these aspects, we provide insights from the Chinese case for the gentrification and community development of rural areas in the Global South.

Influenced by globalization, rural transition in developed Western countries has experienced processes of productivism, post-productivism, and multifunctional development. By contrast, rural transition in most developing countries has been accompanied by rapid urbanization, which has become a core topic in geography research. As the world’s largest developing country, China has undergone profound development since the reform and opening-up. Moreover, rural spaces in some eastern coastal areas have entered the stage of reconstruction after decades of industrialization and urbanization. This paper takes Suzhou as the case area and measures the process of rural transition from 1990 to 2015 by constructing an index system. It then analyzes the characteristics of space-time evolution using exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) methods to reveal the influence of economic and social development on rural transition. The results show that rural transition, which generally entails the weakening of rurality and enhancing of urbanity on a macro scale, tends to be heterogeneous across different regions on a micro scale. This paper argues that multifunctionality will be the main future trend of rural transition in rapidly urbanizing areas. The experience in Suzhou could provide an example for establishing policies on sustainable development in rural spaces and achieving urban-rural co-governance.

Rocky desertification poverty (RDP) refers to rural poverty triggered or exacerbated by rocky desertification, which deprives farmers of opportunities for improving their financial conditions through agricultural production. As China implements strategies including building a moderately prosperous society, targeted poverty alleviation, and rural revitalization, issues concerning RDP have become the work foci for the Chinese government and research hotspots for Chinese academic circles. This paper provides a thorough review of the history, progress, challenges and prospects based on decades of RDP studies in Southwest China. First, we review the origin, definitions and historical development trends of RDP. Over nearly four decades, research on RDP can be framed as four stages: start-up, poverty alleviation and ecological reconstruction, rocky desertification comprehensive control and green development. We find that RDP research progress appears to be directly related to the Chinese government’s policy support and decision-making in mitigating RDP. Second, previous findings are reviewed and summarised regarding four research aspects: relationship exploration between rocky desertification and rural poverty, mechanisms of rocky desertification for exacerbating poverty, strategies for eliminating RDP and anti-poverty benefit evaluations of rocky desertification control efforts. Third, the remaining challenges are identified and summarised, including the challenges of conducting theoretical research on RDP and consolidating achievements in eliminating RDP. We find that while many achievements have been made in the study of RDP in recent decades, the completeness and systematism of the theoretical system remain weak, and the guidance for empirical research is still insufficient. Finally, this research is fundamental in achieving rural revitalization in rocky desertification areas. The key to eliminating RDP lies in scientific rural transformation development. Given that the karst ecological environment in the subtropical zone is fragile, these regions should build a new rural regional economic system, abandon extensive and predatory development that sacrifices the environment and resources, and promote the transition from backwards development modes to high-quality and sustainable development. This paper will contribute to the current understanding of the issues of RDP, provide theoretical support for the realization of rural revitalization in rocky desertification areas and provide other countries with China’s experience in poverty alleviation.

Absolute poverty was completely eliminated in China in 2020. However, poverty measured by income does not fully reflect the actual situation. This paper analyses multidimensional poverty and its dynamics in rural China from perspectives of region, terrain, and geographical location during 2010-2018. We use the Chinese Family Panel Survey data, adopt the Alkire-Foster method and improve the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), calculating and comparing multidimensional poverty and its dynamics among 3009 rural households. In addition, the contribution of the indicator to multidimensional poverty is decomposed. The results indicate that multidimensional poverty has obvious regional differences, topographical differences, and geographical differences. Moreover, the targeted poverty alleviation policy has a significant impact on multidimensional poverty eradication, and the rate of decline of the MPI during 2016-2018 is significantly greater than that of 2010-2014. Education contributes more than 50% to the MPI. In general, the proportion of households with persistent multidimensional poverty is higher than temporary multidimensional poverty, and temporary multidimensional poverty is higher than no multidimensional poverty. These results obtained from a large scale, long time and multiple perspectives could offer new insights for the government to further consolidate the results of poverty alleviation while offering China’s experience to other developing countries.