Resettlement willingness: From a village environmental perspective

Abstract

Breaking the limitations of the urban perspective, there is an urgent need to study the influence of the village environment on the willingness of rural households to resettle. This paper explored the determinants and the mechanism of village environment factors on resettlement willingness using full-sample survey data (872,414 households) of 1382 administrative villages in Huai’an, a typical agricultural area in Eastern China. The result revealed that environmental factors generally have a greater impact on the spatial heterogeneity of resettlement willingness, in the order of natural environment, economic environment, social environment, and policy environment; among which geographic location, housing conditions, behavioral tendency of farmers and planning guidance are the key factors. In addition, the absolute location of the urban area in the geographic region has a significantly greater effect than that of the county, and the "following behavior" of the farmers affected their resettlement decision. Therefore, differentiated policies should be formulated according to the spatial distribution of the resettlement willingness, building a dual-core village and town system within the county.