Exploring the urban-rural development differences and influencing factors in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain of China

doi:10.1007/s11442-020-1802-z

Abstract

Abstract:

Uneven urban and rural development is one of the main reasons for the decline of the countryside. This imbalance could be measured by the urban-rural difference index (URDI). Existing studies on urban-rural differences have focused on single dimension between urban and rural areas, and lack a systematic multi-dimensional measurement. Based on the construction of an index system and model for measuring urban-rural differences, this study took the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain (HHHP) as the study area, explores the spatial pattern of urban-rural differences in the area, and used geographical weighted regression models to identify the factors affecting urban-rural development differences. Results show that the mean value of URDI in the HHHP was 0.295, and the URDI in its western region was higher than that in the east. The average URDI was relatively high in the western counties along the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway. The low level of urban-rural “population-land-industry” development in the HHHP is an important reason for the small differences between urban and rural areas. Improvements in road transportation infrastructure have led to an increase in the urban-rural development gap. However, the driving force of the road network on urban development is greater than that on rural areas. The role of county economic agglomeration is gaining strength. In the process of rapid economic development, more attention should be paid to the development of the rural economy and the overall revitalization of the countryside. The equivalent allocation of social service facilities is an effective way to solve the problem of urban-rural imbalance. Further analysis demonstrated that terrain factors have relatively little influence on the URDI. This study provides a new perspective and measurement method for understanding the integration of urban and rural development, and provides a useful reference for guiding the urban-rural integration development and the rural revitalization.

Key words: urban-rural difference index (URDI), population-land-industry, urban-rural relationship, rural revitalization, Huang-Huai-Hai Plain (HHHP), China

CHENG Mingyang, LI Linna, ZHOU Yang. Exploring the urban-rural development differences and influencing factors in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain of China[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2020, 30(10): 1603-1616.

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Destination layer	Criteria layer	Index layer	Weights
Urban development	Urban population	Proportion of workers to the total urban population in secondary and tertiary industries	0.50
	Urban population	Disposable income of urban residents	0.50
	Urban land	Intensive level of land use in urban built-up areas (person/km²)	0.51
	Urban land	Secondary and tertiary industrial output value per km² in urban built-up areas	0.49
	Urban industry	Urban per capita output value of secondary and tertiary industries (yuan per capita)	1.00
Rural development	Rural population	Proportion of rural workers to the total rural population	0.50
	Rural population	Disposable income of rural residents	0.50
	Rural land	Intensive level of land use in rural settlements (person/km²)	0.51
	Rural land	Grain output value per km² of cultivated land	0.49
	Rural industry	Output value per capita of rural primary industry	1.00

Factors	Index layer	Weights
Road network coverage level	Highway length per km²	0.20
	National road length per km²	0.26
	Provincial road length per km²	0.23
	County road length per km²	0.28
	Railway length per km²	0.13
Natural factors	County average slope
Economic factors	County per capita GDP	0.40
	County per capita public finance income	0.30
	County per capita taxes	0.30
Social factors	County per capita social welfare homes	0.31
	County per capita medical and health beds	0.36
	Proportion of students to the county population	0.33

Urban-rural population		Urban-rural land		Urban-rural industry		Development level
UP_i	RP_i	UL_i	RL_i	UI_i	RI_i	Development level
[0, 0.3]	[0, 0.3]	[0, 0.3]	[0, 0.3]	[0, 0.3]	[0, 0.3]	Low
(0.3, 0.6]	(0.3, 0.6]	(0.3, 0.6]	(0.3, 0.6]	(0.3, 0.6]	(0.3, 0.6]	Medium
(0.6, 1]	(0.6, 1]	(0.6, 1]	(0.6, 1]	(0.6, 1]	(0.6, 1]	High

Development type	Urban-rural population (%)	Urban-rural land (%)	Urban-rural industry (%)
Low-level urban-rural development	9.33 (28)	13.33 (40)	83.67 (251)
Low-level urban development and medium-level rural development	28.67 (86)	48.00 (144)	6.00 (18)
Low-level urban development and high-level rural development	0.33 (1)	7.33 (22)	0.33 (1)
Medium-level urban development and low-level rural development	5.00 (15)	6.33 (19)	7.00 (21)
Medium-level urban-rural development	49.67 (149)	18.00 (54)	1.33 (4)
Medium-level urban development and high-level rural development	6.33 (19)	4.33 (13)	0.67 (2)
High-level urban development and low-level rural development	0	1.00 (3)	1.00 (3)
High-level urban development and medium-level rural development	0.33 (1)	1.67 (5)	0
High-level urban-rural development	0.33 (1)	0	0

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