Urban-rural Integration In China's Megacities:a Geo-spatial Approach

In recent decades,China has experienced an enormous economic development and an explosive growth of its urbanization progress.The number and size of cities have both increased,obviously.Until 2014,China has 7 cities with population more than 10 million,16 cities with population more than 5 million,and 142 cities with population more than 1 million.However,the widening disparities between urban and rural regions have become notable to the public.How to ensure the coordinated development of city and country is an issue at the forefront of the Chinese government.The study of urban-rural relationship has practical significance to the high-speed urbanization progress in China.In this thesis,the literatures of urban-rural integration at home and abroad are reviewed.The experiences of developed countries and current situations are discussed.On this basis,the urban-rural integration levels of 31 provincial capitals are studied.Infrastructure information,statistical data and landscape indices are used to study the urban-rural integration level of 31 provincial capital cities in China.The catastrophe theory is used to establish a comprehensive index system for the urban-rural integration level evaluation.To validate this result,an analytical hierarchy process is also applied.The results of the two methods are basically the same,which shows that the evaluation results are reliable.Furthermore,this thesis evaluates the urbanization level of the 31 cities and explores the association between urbanization and urban-rural integration using a geographically weighted regression.Given the evaluation result and association between urbanization and urban-rural integration,the following conclusions can be drawn:·Downtowns and suburbs have obvious disparity in both infrastructure construction and economy level.·The urban-rural integration level in China is unbalanced and the integration level decreases from coastline to deep midland.Among the 31 provincial cities,Guangzhou and Beijing have the highest urban-rural integration level.·In underdeveloped regions,the level of urbanization has more influence to the level of urban-rural integration,whereas in more developed regions,the level of urbanization has a relatively low impact to urban-rural integration.