Research On The Correlation-Mutualism Development Between Urban And Rural Areas In China Under The Evolution Of Rural-Urban Relationship

As the external manifestation of rural-urban linkages and rural-urban interactivities in multi-levels,the evolution process of rural-urban relationship largely reflects regional capacity for sustainable development.The rural-urban relationship in China has undergone the rural-urban separation stage before reform and opening-up,and the urban domination stage after reform and opening-up,which has played a role in promoting regional economic growth,industrialization,and urbanization.It has also brought about a widening rural-urban gap,backward rural development,farmland abandonment and many other issues.Since the concept of “coordinating the economic and social development in both urban and rural areas” was first put forward at the 16 th CPC National Congress in 2002,China started to keep paying close attention to the rural-urban development problem and the rural-urban relationship began to shift from urban priority development to both urban and rural areas.In the report of the 19 th CPC National Congress released in October 2017,China proposed the concept of “rural-urban integration” and planned to implement the “rural vitalization strategy” at the first time,marking that China's rural-urban relationship has entered a new stage,from the equal emphasis on urban and rural areas to rural-urban interaction and integration development.This major policy change shows that the rural-urban integration not only truly reflects the core feature of the current rural-urban relationship in China,but also urgently calls for a theoretical innovation in the evolutionary development of rural-urban relationship.How to adapt or accelerate the coordinated development of urban and rural areas through policy choices and promote the regional sustainable development capability is particularly important.The relationship between urban and rural areas has the characteristics of natural evolution,and the characteristics of rural-urban relationship will be different due to institutional choices and technological advancement by delaying,or accelerating,or jumping,or changing the paths.This paper starts with the emphasis on rural-urban equalization and rural-urban interaction,and attempts to add institutions and technologies to the rural-urban development process on the basis of spacial and functional factors.It uses new economic geography research methods to theoretically explore the rural-urban interactivity mechanisms and the conditions for stage evolution,and attempts to optimize rural-urban relationship and achieve the goal of promoting rural-urban coordination,interaction,and integration in order to provide practical lessons for the evolution of rural-urban relationship in China.Under the background of the concept of rural-urban integration development,this paper takes the evolution of rural-urban relationship as the research object.Based on the two driving mechanisms of rural-urban linkages and rural-urban interactivities,this paper discusses the internal mechanism of the evolutionary development of rural-urban relationship and the rural-urban correlation-mutualism development pattern from the perspective of interaction.Firstly,this paper defines the connotation and characteristics of rural-urban relationship,and emphasizes the important role of correlative development and reciprocal mutualism for rural-urban interaction and integration;Secondly,this paper considers the rural-urban linkages and the rural-urban interactivities as two driving mechanisms for the evolutionary development of rural-urban relationship.In combination with the different evolution stages of rural-urban relationship,an intrinsic mechanism analysis is made.Through the driving factors and several core influencing factors in the process of internal mechanism interpretation,the analysis framework of correlation-mutualism development between urban and rural areas based on the perspective of interaction is further constructed;Afterwards,using the analysis framework of correlation-mutualism development between urban and rural areas to compare the rural-urban relationship in Europe and America,and analyzing the interaction and integration models under the influence of different variables;What's more,starts from the stage-advancing conditions in the analysis framework of correlation-mutualism development between urban and rural areas,we use the new economic geography research methods to make model derivation of the stage evolution of rural-urban relationship;Then,this paper conducts empirical tests of the theoretical framework and model variables from both the national and regional dimensions,which will contribute to a further investigation on the rural-urban development stages and possible evolutionary directions in China and its different regions;Finally,according to the theoretical analysis and empirical test results,this paper attempts to propose some feasible countermeasures and suggestions to promote correlation-mutualism development between urban and rural areas in China.The main viewpoints and conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)Based on the perspective of rural-urban interaction,this paper discusses the evolution of rural-urban relationship by emphasizing the “dual-acting” role of cities and villages,and weakens the “single-acting” characteristics of cities in rural-urban relations.The results of practical observation and theoretical analysis show that the rural-urban relationship can be divided into four stages of rural-urban separation,urban domination,rural-urban interaction,and rural-urban integration from a dynamic perspective.The correlative development and reciprocal mutualism are important features of rural-urban interaction and integration.(2)Two types of driving mechanisms in rural-urban evolution work together to obtain six driving forces in the evolution of rural-urban relationship.In the the evolution process of rural-urban relationship,they have become the driving force for displaying the characteristics of different stages.For example,rural-to-urban one-way factor mobility is expressed as a city-centric agglomeration force,reflecting the core characteristics of the urban domination stage;In a continuously strengthened process,rural-urban two-way factor mobility,multi-industrial interactivity and trans-regional accessibility are together expressed as a spread tendency toward the surrounding rural areas,reflecting the core characteristics of the rural-urban interaction stage;Basic public service heterogenicity and internality of environmental utility are mainly manifested as the dispersion force,reflecting the core characteristics of the rural-urban integration stage.(3)Under the framework of correlation-mutualism development between urban and rural areas,the United States and Europe are typical representatives of interactive and integrated development,which are respectively known as the rural-urban interaction model of free extension driven by technology and the rural-urban integration model of cluster-typed network mutualism.The new economic sectors,which are stimulated by technology and service,play a positive role in promoting the rural-urban free extension by influencing the economic vitality of urban and rural communities in the United States.The evolutionary path from the characteristic town of Silicon Valley to the entire San Francisco Bay Area essentially reflects a kind of multi-industrial interaction that is knowledge and technology oriented,as well as the extension of small towns between urban and rural areas.As for the European model,the extensive correlations and interactivities among numerous small and medium-sized towns are becoming increasingly close,leading to an extremely obvious tendency that the Europe has experienced a transition from the urban agglomerations to polycentric city-regions.As a result,the rural-urban integration model of cluster-typed network mutualism in Europe promotes to shape the largest and most connected urban network in the world,and achieve regional sustainable development.(4)Using the new economic geography theory,through the basic rural-urban model and its classificational deduction,relevant variables are gradually added,and the urban domination model,the rural-urban interaction model and the rural-urban integration model are constructed,and advancing conditions for the stage evolution of rural-urban relationship is theoretically deduced.Corresponding to the evolution process of various rural-urban linkages and their interactivities under the development stages of different rural-urban relationships,various driving indicators affecting the evolution of rural-urban relationships are included in different stage models.This constant narrowing or rigorous modeling approach helps to deepen and expand the theory of rural-urban relationships.(5)Empirical test results show that the current rural-urban development stage of China is in the evolutionary transition from rural-urban interaction to integration,and it is consistent with the concept of rural-urban integration which is just proposed by the 19 th CPC National Congress.From the level of correlation-mutualism development between urban and rural areas,the eastern region is characterized by the development stage of rural-urban integration,and the northeast and central regions are in the development stage of rural-urban interaction,while the western region is gradually evolving and pursuing the development stage of rural-urban interaction.As far as the whole country is concerned,the three key factors that affect the current development gap and rural-urban correlation are as follows,the multi-industrial interactivity,trans-regional accessibility and basic public service heterogenicity.In terms of the four major regions,it is demonstrated to show a step change from top to bottom according to the sequence as the eastern,northeastern,central and western regions.Therefore,it is necessary to fully combine the background of regional development and related policy practice with seizing the common features and trends at the national level,so that the rural-urban correlation-mutualism development strategy can be promoted appropriately.The possible innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)A new perspective on the study of rural-urban relationship evolution: The driving mechanisms for the evolution of rural-urban relationship from the perspective of rural-urban interaction are mainly embodied in multi-level rural-urban linkages,i.e.,the economic,political,social,cultural and environmental linkages,and multi-dimensional rural-urban interactivities,such as the rural-urban spatial interactivity,functional interactivity,technological interactivity and institutional interactivity.The rural-urban interactivities mainly cover the spatial interactivity,functional interactivity,technological interactivity and institutional interactivity that occur widely between cities and villages.The important point is to emphasize the “dual-acting” role of cities and villages,and weakens the “single-acting” characteristics of cities in rural-urban relationship,which can unearth the main influencing factors and key driving force indicators of rural-urban relationship evolution,and provide a direct theoretical basis for analyzing the internal mechanisms in rural-urban relationship evolution.(2)An analysis framework of correlation-mutualism development between urban and rural areas under the evolution of rural-urban relationship is constructed through the logical core of “hypothesis premise-action mechanism-junior stage advancing condition-senior stage advancing condition-development outcomes”.Among them,the factor mobility and rural-urban linkages play a central role in the whole framework as the hypothesis premise of correlation-mutualism development;The increasing returns and industrial interaction can directly reflect the linkages between urban and rural areas and their interactivities,which reveal the action mechanism of correlation-mutualism development;The consumption upgrade,facility construction and the rise of new economies,together with the basic service equalization and environmental utility,have played a positive role in driving forward to the rural-urban interaction and integration,which are respectively regarded as the junior stage advancing condition and senior stage advancing condition of correlation-mutualism development;Narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas,rural-urban integration and unification,which display the development outcomes of correlation-mutualism development,make a dynamic description of the final state.(3)Through the basic rural-urban model and its classificational deduction,the urban domination model,the rural-urban interaction model and the rural-urban integration model are constructed,and advancing conditions for the stage evolution of rural-urban relationship is theoretically deduced.To a certain extent,it has expanded the theoretical research system of rural-urban relationship.Under the urban domination model,the booming traditional industry,agglomeration effects and scale returns tend to the peak level,and the core feature of factor migration is the one-way flow of rural labor force,together with the rural-urban spatial forms displaying as the city-centric agglomeration;Under the rural-urban integration model,due to the introduction of traditional rural industrial sectors under the “threshold zone” of traditional industries,the internal driving force of factor mobility is the coexistence of agglomeration force and dispersion force.The core feature of factor migration is the free flow of rural labor force,together with the rural-urban spatial forms tending to spread through agglomeration;Under the rural-urban integration model,due to the introduction of new economic sectors,environmental utility and trans-regional accessibility,the internal driving force of factor mobility is mainly manifested as the dispersion force,which can be reflected by urban congestion costs,human capital factors and environmental utility factors.The core feature of factor migration is the free flow of both urban and rural labor force,together with the rural-urban spatial forms displaying a further spread tendency.The evolution of rural-urban relationship and rural-urban development are major topics involving many disciplines and fields.This paper explores the rural-urban correlation-mutualism development in the evolution of rural-urban relationship from the perspective of rural-urban interaction.There are still some discussions waiting to be explored in the analysis and demonstration process,together with some inevitable omissions and inadequacies: On the selection of driving force indicators that reflecting the evolution of rural-urban relationship,there may be some discussions waiting to be explored.In addition to labor factors,capital and land are not included in the mathematical model.The empirical part has not yet explored the rural-urban correlation-mutualism development patterns in different regions.The policies and suggestions concerning rural-urban correlation-mutualism development in China need to be specified,and so on.These issues need to be further studied and are also my future direction.