A Study On The Current Situation Of Urban-Rural Integrated Development And The Countermeasures In The Underdeveloped Regions

As a general problem facing most of the underdeveloped countries, the unbalanced development of urban and rural areas has drawn widespread attention of the academia and governments all over the world. Being the biggest developing country in the world, China is now suffering from the imbalance. The increasingly widening gap between urban and rural areas has seriously affected the construction process of our socialist harmonious society. To solve this problem, at the Sixteenth CPC National Congress, China's leaders has proposed a strategic outline for balancing urban and rural development, requiring that urban and rural areas should be considered as a whole and that we should make unified plans to achieve coordinated promotion. The 2010 No.1 Document of Central Government has even listed balancing urban and rural development as a primary task, and it is beyond doubt that the underdeveloped regions will be the focus and key problem. Confronting with all kinds of problem and obstacles, the comparatively underdeveloped regions will how to formulate pointed and viable developing strategies is a question that needs considering and studying.Influenced by the limitation of local resources, and environmental, economical, cultural, demographic, and institutional factors, in addition to the class discrepancy resulted from development stages and inadequate support from government, it is particularly difficult to balance urban and rural development in underdeveloped regions. Its difficulty manifests in three aspects:in the first place, the economical foundation in these regions is comparatively weak; Secondly, the level of construction of small towns and urbanization is lower than average; the third aspect is the deficiency in resources and means. As a underdeveloped regions in Zhejiang Province, Lishui City is confronting similar difficulties like other underdeveloped regions as well as its own peculiar restrictions. The limiting factors facing Lishui City are: deficient investment in the construction of infrastructure of agriculture and rural areas; widening gap in urban and rural income, and the development of rural economy is left behind; high rate of rural population and low quality of labor force; unresolved institutional factors that deter balancing urban and rural development leads to the defect in social security. Overall, the inadequate investment from government causes a low productivity and developmental force, and this in turn, widens the gap between rural and urban areas. Therefore, government should play a leading role in balancing urban and rural development. In order to shake off the vicious cycle of poverty, and facilitate the development of balancing urban and rural areas, following measures should be taken to eliminate negative influence of those restricting factors:strengthen the construction of infrastructures in rural areas, and improve the producing and living conditions of farmers; vigorously develop rural economy and increase the income of farmers through many other ways; increase spending on education and improve the quality of rural labor force; innovate institutions and strengthen rural social security.This paper includes six sections. The first part is introduction, mainly introducing the research background and its meanings. It also touches upon the studies and research methods both home and abroad; the second part focuses on the theoretical base of balancing urban and rural development. In this section, we will introduce some relevant conceptions on balancing urban and rural development research the evaluation methods that are currently available and the model evaluation.Further discussions on peculiar difficulties in underdeveloped regions will also be mentioned; in the third section, the current situation coming from infrastructure, economy, population, and institution in the process of balancing urban and rural development in Lishui City will be analyzed respectively; the fourth part is about comprehensive evaluation of the four factors in Lishui City. An evaluation index system is designed and a corresponding model is established for evaluating the four factors in Lishui City. All the limiting factors are evaluated and the results will be analyzed in detail. The fifth part will discuss the countermeasures for Lishui City on its balance urban and rural development from infrastructure, economy, population and institution four aspects, and propose some adapting and viable measures; the last section sums up the whole thesis.