Analysis Of Sustainability Of Small Towns In East China

Small town is at the bottom of the administration system in our country. It stands at a very important strategic position in sustainable development of our country because whether or not can it develop rapidly and steadily has much to do with the benefit of people at the grass-root level, the number of whom is very large. In our country, small towns in Eastern area develop more rapidly than those in other areas. Therefore the development pattern of the former provides a good example for the others. This article assessed the situation and tendency of sustainable development of the eastern small towns quantitatively using an index system. Through the assessment not only can we find out present development situation of these small towns in recent years, during which sustainable development strategy was carried out, but also can we get some useful indications for the development of the other small town in the future.The sustainability of a small town is made according to several aspects-economic, nature resources, environmental ecological, social and cultural. It's a complex system, not until every subordinate system works effectively and harmoniously can the whole system works in a beneficial cycle. After studying the connotation of sustainability and the characteristic of the small towns in eastern area, this paper builds a evaluation index system of sustainable development of small town in eastern area, which includes 4 first-degree indicators (economy, social, resource, environment), 13 second-degree indicators and 32 third-degree indicators. These indicators are endowed with weights by means of the Analytic Hierarchy Process. Then 10 small towns of Jia Shan are taken as concrete cases. The development level and coordination degree are calculated. Six different development modes are categorized according to the result (high developed and high coordinated, middle developed and high coordinated, low developed and high coordinated, middle developed and middle coordinated, middle developed and low coordinated, low developed and low coordinated). Each of the modes is described in details on developing level, characteristics and limitation factors, and the development suggestion are then proposed.