Study On The Small Town Development Pattern Of Wuling Mountain Contiguous Destitute Areas

Since the reform and opening up, China, as the world’s most populous country, its urbanization development has attracted worldwide attention. Urbanization is the only way of China’s comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development in the future, the only way of rural areas especially poverty-stricken areas building a comprehensive well-off society and also the important way to solve the difficult issues in China’s reform and development. However, with the rapid advance of urbanization, there are some problems to be solved; for example, the vast majority of peasant-workers who work in the town for long periods still do not enjoy the same treatment as urban residents, having no sense of belonging in the city; urban planning and management levels are low and development modes are extensive; blind pursuit of land urbanization leads to serious waste of resources; the development gap between eastern, central and western towns are larger and larger, and especially the cities with high administrative level develop very rapidly. Thus, with the continuous adjustment and changes of China’s urbanization development strategies, the development of small towns will become the focus of future urbanization strategy. In China, the small towns distribute broadly and cover a wide range of areas. Small towns, as the joint point from rural areas to the city, can effectively integrate various elements of both the urban and rural areas, having rural characteristics as well as urban basic features, being the essential transition in the course of urban and rural integration. The development of small towns plays larger leading and driving roles in the development of rural areas and the improvement of farmers’interests. Therefore, the development of small towns ought to be placed on the most important position so that it can have a new historic opportunity.The difficulty of realizing all-round well-off society lies in poverty-stricken areas. When Premier Li keqiang delivered the party’s "government work report", he indicated China’s firm attitude to solving the poverty problem and using fighting spirit to attack the poverty difficulty. The designation of contiguous destitute areas and the beginning of poverty alleviation work are important measures the Party’ Central Committee takes to solve the unbalanced development, promote the sharing of reform and opening up results as well as build an all-round well-off society."National Program for Rural Poverty Alleviation (2001-2010)", which was issued in May2011, defined that14contiguous destitute areas like Wuling Mountain are the main battlefield of China’s poverty alleviation in the new era. Among them, Wuling Mountain contiguous destitute areas (abbreviated "Wuling Mountain areas") have prominent poverty problem and a large number of poor people. In addition, they are old revolutionary base areas with many ethnic minorities and wide trans-provincial areas and leading experimental area of poverty alleviation battlefield. This paper places the small town development pattern of Wuling Mountain areas under the context of national poverty alleviation in contiguous destitute areas in the new era and puts forward corresponding sustainable development pattern through the study of background analysis, core concepts definition, theory embedding, experience enlightenment, field investigations, problem analysis, model summary and policy recommendations etc. It has great significance in improving China’s small town development theory system from both theoretical and practical dimensions, promoting the urbanization development of China’s contiguous destitute areas, innovating poverty alleviation development model, optimizing and integrating poverty reduction resources and boosting the success of poverty alleviation.This paper, through analyzing and summarizing references, sums up the results of relevant theoretical studies on small town development pattern at home and abroad. Meantime, through collecting and analyzing data, it summarizes the current problems of small town development in China’s contiguous destitute areas such as overall harsh environment, low level of urbanization, single industrial structure, extensive development mode, unreasonable urban planning, fragmented space structure, backward infrastructure and inadequate human resources and so on. In the course of probing into the small town development pattern of Wuling Mountain areas, this paper chooses the core city of six major cities---Tongren city as the research subject. It makes field research through combining the questionnaires and in-depth interviews of some townships and grass-root government in Tongren. According to valid recovery data and actual interview situation, this paper analyzes deeply the development situation of Tongren small towns and the constraints. Based on the experience of analyzing typical mode of China’s small town development, it, following the totality principle, regional differences principle, expansion principle, highlighting advantages principle and sustainable development principle, constructs development modes like round extension mode, industrial location aggregation development model, the development model along the lines and building central village model, which are applicable to Tongren small towns. Additionally, it also promotes the new urbanization in small towns from scientific planning of urban development, improvement of towns’intensive operation capability and elimination of institutional barriers, establishing small towns with its own characteristics, full employment, harmonious living conditions and beautiful environment. Finally, according to the above findings, the author provides the following countermeasures and suggestions for Wuling Mountain areas, namely:formulate scientific small town development plans and establish reasonable industrial development strategies; remove institutional barriers and foster new mechanisms of healthy development; Strengthen the urban scientific management, improve urban intensive running capability; perfect diversified investment and financing system and establish virtuous circle mechanism; enhance the modernization of urban infrastructure and achieve equalization of public services; strengthen policy support and emphasize talent development strategy. This paper is divided into seven chapters:Chapter one is the introduction, which mainly discusses the background, questions, purpose, content, idea and methodology of the research.Chapter two is concerned with some relevant important concepts and literature review.Chapter three focuses on analyzing the development situation of small towns in contiguous destitute areas.Chapter four is the overview of research design and research subject, which mainly includes the questionnaire design, analysis method, respondent situation, sampling method and basic situation of samples.Chapter five is the current development situation of Tongren small towns, which conducts studies and explorations on its development pattern on the basis of previous research.Chapter six, based on the above studies, provides the countermeasures and suggestions for Wuling Mountain area small townsChapter seven is the conclusion and prospect.