Mechanism of influence of element flow on urban-rural integrated development in China

Abstract

The flow of urban and rural elements runs through the entire process of urban and rural development and is the core of achieving urban and rural integration. Exploring the mechanism of influence of urban-rural element flow on urban-rural integrated development can provide a scientific guidance for breaking the plight of urban-rural integrated development. Based on the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) model, this study evaluated the development level of urban-rural integration in 292 cities across China, and used the ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models to explore the impact mechanism of urban-rural element flow on urban-rural integration. The results show that: 1) There are large spatial differences in the level of urban-rural integrated development at the city level in China. Most of the cities that have reached the level of deep urban-rural integration are economically developed. In general, the eastern region has the most balanced urban-rural integration. 2) Overall, the flow of land elements and population elements has the most significant impact on the urban-rural integrated development, and the driving effects of the two are negative. Locally, the influence of the flow of various urban-rural elements on the urban-rural integrated development has obvious regional differences. 3) The loss of land elements of the countryside causes loss of production elements and development space in these areas, and the lost talents have no effective way to return to the countryside, which limits urban-rural integrated development. Government investment promotes the agglomeration of elements and reduces the cost of element flow, urban and rural industries achieve division of labor and complement each other in functions, and the effective flow of information elements reduces allocation costs and improves allocation efficiency of other elements, which are beneficial to urban-rural integration.