| Throughout the thousands of years of the farming civilization history in China,the traditional rural settlements under the peasant economy have basically retained their vernacular nature,that is,the rural settlements were tightly attached to specific land space,and gradually developed into an endogenous community glued by kinship or geographical ties.Driven by globalization,urbanization,and industrialization emerging from the second half of the 20 th century,the evolution of rural settlements has gradually accelerated,and has become a focus of the research areas such as human geography,landscape ecology,and land use transition.As the market economy and cities have become more prosperous since China’s reform and opening up in 1978,rural areas have experienced drastic declines in population,land,industry,and governance,etc.The strategic needs of intensive land use and the urban-rural integrated development constitute the impetus of the current transition of rural settlements from dispersion to relative concentration.Concentrated rural resettlement(CRR)has been widely implemented in rural China in recent years through the “increasing vs.decreasing balance” policy for increases in urban construction land with a reduction in rural construction land.However,many top-down practices have highlighted a series of emerging deficiencies,including utilitarian tendencies,ambiguous functional positioning,mechanical integration and mismatched policy mechanisms,and weak planning theories in the CRR practices.Given China’s ambitions for the “people-oriented urbanization” and rural revitalization,CRR is bound to be developed towards a systematic and connotative direction.Furthermore,in view of the imbalanced development of China’s rural areas,the solution of these problems requires the formulation of community-based strategies tailored to local conditions based on regional social,economic,and cultural characteristics.By virtue of the policy advantages as China’s Integrated Urban-rural Comprehensive Reform Pilot Zone,Chengdu and Chongqing located in southwest China have promoted extensive CRR practices through rural policy innovation since 2007.A large number of scattered residents have been integrated into relatively high-density rural communities.The typical regional characteristics,superior policy resources,and extensive practices made Sichuan Basin an ideal testing ground for studying the transformation of rural settlements in the urbanization process.At present,domestic researches on the characteristics and evolution of rural settlement landscapes were keen on the physical and economic aspects,while the humanistic connotation of rural settlements was insufficiently understood,which called for urgent needs to strengthen the integrity of rural settlement research.The mainstream research reported that traditional rural settlements in the upland areas of Sichuan Basin were in a highly dispersed pattern,and argued that it largely resulted from the uneven topography,broken farmland,and the household contract responsibility system established in the 1980 s.By taking the “dispersion-to-concentration” transformation of rural settlements as the starting point and combining China’s traditional rural structure with current urban-rural development strategies,this study attempted to 1)reveal the origin of the highly dispersed pattern of traditional settlements in the upland areas of Sichuan Basin from a sociocultural perspective,and 2)to explore the dynamic mechanism of rural settlement transition from dispersion to concentration,based on which(3)the effects of CRR-driven rural restructuring and the community-based planning strategies were explored through case studies.The main findings and conclusions were as follows.(1)The rural settlements dispersion in the upland areas of Sichuan Basin was significantly related to the high cultivation rate and lineage diversity,which was rooted in land use strategies and social structural evolution caused by the arable soil and great immigration in the early Qing Dynasty.From the perspective of Chinese lineage,a regional comparison was elaborately conducted between Sichuan Basin and a typical area characterized by lineage culture in Southern China,to reveal the socio-cultural roots of the rural settlement dispersion(RSD).According to the principle of ‘control variables’ and ‘comparability’,this study selected Hechuan District of Chongqing Municipality,Pidu District of Sichuan Province,and Taihe County of Jiangxi Province as representative areas of the upland areas of Sichuan Basin,the plain area of Sichuan Basin and the Jiangnan hilly areas,respectively.Regional differences were articulated by field surveys and in-depth investigations on four case villages.By comparing the distribution and form of rural settlements in the case villages and the subjective cognition of a total of 698 sampled residents from the three regions,the potential relationship between the settlement form and the lineage structure represented by the surnames was preliminarily determined.Based on land use data in 2010 of 431(administrative)villages,the settlement dispersion indexes,which include the spatial dispersion and scale dispersion,were compared among the three regions.It was found that rural settlement patterns in Sichuan Basin,whatever the terrain,was an extraordinary dispersion,i.e.‘diffuse and dense in spatial distribution’,and ‘uniform and small in size’.In contrast,the rural settlements in the villages of Taihe County were much more compact and variant.Using the ordered logistic model for the 431 villages in the three regions,it was further indicated that the RSD in Sichuan Basin was positively associated with the lineage diversity and cultivation rate.Combining the analysis on historical documentations and relevant literature,it was deduced that a trigger event of lineage diversification and high cultivation rate was the rapid immigration into Sichuan Basin in the early Qing Dynasty.The continuous and large-scale immigration wave,specific immigration policies,and tillable soil created the spatial intermingling of people from different lineages,the diversification of crops,and population explosion.Driven by the internal and external factors,the frontier clearing rapidly expanded in space and the patriarchal consciousness declined.In other words,the large-scale immigration wave and unique natural conditions shifted the rural settlements towards an agriculture-oriented development path,while the basis for the traditional lineage settlements gradually weakened.It was portrayed that Sichuan Basin deviated from the lineage culture of traditional China.Therefore,the high RSD largely stemmed from an aggressive paradigm of land-use strategy and the incompactness of the lineage structure under the tension of ‘man-land’ relationship.The findings highlighted the role of lineage in determining rural settlement in traditional China.(2)CRR in upland areas of Sichuan Basin is an adaptive process of the dispersed settlements to the transformation of the urban and market-towns system under the urban-rural duality.Despite the high RSD in Sichuan Basin,it does not imply the chaos of the local society and the spatial structure of the settlements.In contrast,as Skinner’s research on China’s rural marketing system during the 1960 s showed,the dispersed rural settlements were well integrated into the higher-order market-town system which closely corresponded to Christaller central-place theory,and the market-towns played an extremely important role in sustaining rural society.From a historical and anthropological perspective,this study further articulated the reciprocal relationship between the dispersed rural settlement pattern and spatial organization of market-towns.The highly dispersed rural settlements,which were rooted in natural,social and historical factors,reflected a stronger commodification sense and pioneering spirit of the farmers.This may stimulate the commercialization of agriculture and the improvement of farmers’ marketing participation,and thus promote the proliferation of rural market-towns.In turn,the prosperity and development of rural market-towns might increase farmers’ awareness of the commodity economy,which in turn stimulates the development of a market economy and the adjustment of the agricultural structure.The process of mutual feedback between agriculture-oriented settlements and the growing market-town system further remolded Sichuan Basin into a market-oriented society.It was assumed that Sichuan Basin experienced a continuous and time-space compressed growth after the immigratio—the rapid development of frontiers,the proliferation of new settlements or populations,and the establishment of market-towns,which finally created a spatial-social structure different from the rural system dominated by clustered villages.Driven by contemporary industrialization and urbanization,the well-organized settlement hierarchy is undergoing drastic evolution.From 2007 to 2015,the main evolution of the higher-order market-towns in Hechuan include: 1)the rapid expansion of the urban area,the rapid growth of intermediate market towns and the stagnation of standard market-towns;2)the extended dependent areas of intermediate market-towns and urban;and 3)the improvement of urban-rural relationship.Using the generalized maximum entropy(GME)estimator on the 87 new-built concentrated settlements in Hechuan,it was indicated that intermediate market-towns,transport services,industrial development and agricultural modernization were critical in determining the number of relocated rural households,while the marketing role embedded in the standard market-towns was secondary.The evolution of the market-towns was common to that experienced in western developed countries,while CRR outcomes were underpinned but also limited by China’s distinct institutions.Given China’s regime and urban-rural development strategy,it is argued that future CRR planning in upland areas in Sichuan Basin should be realigned with the evolving market-town system by using the geographical resources inherent in the traditional structures.Accordingly,three models were recommended to guide the rural settlement planning in local conditions,i.e.,intermediate-towns oriented model,community-based concentration model and the urban-radiating model.(3)The CRR at the town level promoted the establishment of a “village-town” system,and significantly expanded the social network of resettled households,while the transformation concerning economic and governance of the new communities lagged behind.Through a case study in Qiantang Town of Hechuan,this study further investigated the rural restructuring trajectory following CRR implementation.The town was roughly equivalent to the dependent area of an intermediate market-town,where 11 concentrated communities following two models were built from 2012 and 2015.Data was collected through in-depth field surveys on the new communities and interviews with relevant government personnel,village officials,community managers,and 209 relocated residents.A brief comparison between the ‘community-based concentration’ model and the ‘intermediate market-town oriented model’ was conducted to illuminate their differences in terms of policy-making,planning process and CRR results.The results indicated that 1)CRR has created marked spatial and social restructuring,in which the village-town hierarchy was formed and the resettled residents’ social networks were expanded;however,economic restructuring was laggard and was accompanied by the persistent out-migration after CRR,which directly weakened community governance.The findings revealed that the CRR examined herein,which delivered social-spatial restructuring,offered an approach that dealt with rural services/infrastructure challenges through local democratic structures.Despite the economic and administrative weaknesses,CRR would be indispensable for rural restructuring under the present circumstances if it effectively engages with China’s rural revitalisation strategy.(4)Shaped by the leadership of the local government,grass-roots self-governance,and traditional geographical relationships,CRR has promoted the integration of rural development elements,while CRR planning should be adapted to local geographic and socioeconomic conditions.Focusing on the community-based CRR which consolidated traditional dispersed rural settlement into the planned concentrated communities within villages,this study contextualized and analyzed the implementation process and outcomes of its local practices and villagers’ attitudes and behaviors,through in-depth field investigations from a successful case(Dazhu Village)and a less successful case(Fengsi Village)in Hechuan.Dazhu Village,where public services,modern agriculture,and public infrastructure were better,adopted a resettlement strategy with a greater degree of concentration.Fengsi Village,which was relatively backward,adopted a relatively ‘decentralized’ resettlement strategy.It was observed that the CRR planning was a result of the gambling between the government,village committee,construction agent,and farmers,and was generally affected by pre-existing conditions,government input,and development potential of the village.The regression results by the binary logistic model showed that,in Dazhu Village,the households with younger head,higher land transferring rate and poor housing structure and traffic conditions were more inclined to relocate;in Fengsi Village,the rural households with heads who were younger and shorter in non-farming time,and those with higher proportion of non-agricultural income and worse housing conditions had greater possibility for resettlement.Subjective feedback from investigated households further indicated that the main factors driving farmers’ relocation included improvement of living and transportation conditions,preferential resettlement policies,land transfer,and the inherent geo-relationships of rural residents.Accordingly,the main factors hindering farmers’ relocation include satisfying living conditions,individual preference for dispersed living,urbanization tendency,and the dependence on traditional agriculture.Overall,the adaptabilities of CRR were embodied in effectively reducing dispersion of rural settlements,the continuance of local natural-social environment and appealing delivery of housing welfare.However,impressive limitations of CRR covered residents’ low initiative towards residential concentration,livelihood insecurity felt by relocated households and the weakness of new community governance.CRR contributed to integrating housing modernization,intensive land use,population agglomeration and accessibility to social services,whereas it should be prudently developed not only following integrative planning based on local geographical and socio-economic conditions but also measuring the dynamics of rural-urban interactions in urbanizing China.The evidence from this study highlighted the interaction between the social fabric and rural settlement pattern in rural society,and the need to recognize the connotations of traditional settlement patterns in contemporary practices of rural planning.Lineage may provide a distinct perspective into China’s rural settlement researches,and serves as a unique cultural symbol linking the rural geography and rural sociology in China.Furthermore,the results emphasized the extraordinary dispersion of rural settlements in Sichuan Basin among the patterns of compact villages prevailing in rural China.The development of the rural settlement system of Sichuan Basin has shifted towards a market-oriented path.Its connotations included the weak patriarchal consciousness,the atomization of society,the commodity consciousness,individualism,and enterprising spirit.In the context of external industrialization and urbanization,the concentration of dispersed settlements reflects the transformation of the traditional rural structure in Sichuan Basin.However,this transformation would not completely depart from local central-place system shaped by the urban-rural dual structure;Instead,it can be deemed as an adaptive process to the market-town and urban system in transition.The contemporary CRR could be regarded as the inverse process of the rapid population increase and the proliferation of rural market-towns in the early stage of the great immigration.The challenges faced by newly-built communities were mainly reflected in economic potential and community governance.The solution of these problems necessitated the cooperation of local governments,grass-roots organizations,and farmers within the given institutional framework,to make appropriate planning strategies compatible with local natural,socio-economic conditions.This research made up for the lack of attention to the regional social structure in the existing settlement researches and provided policy implications for rural settlement planning,community development,and reform of China’s rural homestead system. |
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