The Phenomenon And Formation Mechanismof Gentrification Of Characteristic Towns In Guangdong Province

Characteristic towns have unique geographical space,cultural space and industrial space,and can enjoy the comprehensive services spilled over from the development of metropolitan cities.They are areas where rural development elements are concentrated,and are also important platforms for promoting the integrated development of urban and rural areas.Compared with other types of small towns,integrated cultural and tourism towns are more numerous,more widely distributed,more cultural and comprehensive,and rural gentrification promotes the transformation of geographical space from production space to consumption space,which is conducive to promoting rural transformation and upgrading and social and economic restructuring,and provides a new perspective and style for the transformation and development of traditional villages.Therefore,this study selects the type of comprehensive cultural and tourism-oriented characteristic town with a high proportion and realistic development significance,and takes Shawan Ancient Town of Guangzhou City as an example to study the development process of rural gentrification in characteristic towns and its formation mechanism.Based on the systematic reading of literature related to gentrification,rural gentrification and characteristic towns,in-depth research is conducted through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires,and the audio files of the interviews in Shawan Ancient Town are first transformed into textual data and then analysed with the aid of NVivo software,using the threelevel coding of rooting theory to conceptualise the textual data,preliminary category and main category,and finally arriving at the core category "The story line between the core category and the main category can be described as follows: the 2 main categories of consumption formation mechanism and production formation mechanism have a significant impact on the formation mechanism of village gentrification.Combined with data obtained from government public information already surveyed,the development process and socio-economic development characteristics of Shawan Ancient Town are summarised,the development process and evolution pattern of rural gentrification in Shawan Ancient Town are identified,and the formation mechanism of rural gentrification in Shawan Ancient Town is explored.The main conclusions obtained are as follows:(1)With the promotion of multiple gentrification subjects such as the government,ancient town management,merchants and indigenous people,the gentrification process of Shawan ancient town has gone through three periods,including the pre-gentrification period(before2008),the tourism gentrification period(2008-2016)and the characteristic town gentrification period(2017-present).(2)After the construction of the special town,the role of gentrification further promoted the transformation of the rural space and economic and social structure of Shawan ancient town.This is highlighted by the shift in consumption of the physical environment,the diversification of the economic structure,the increase in land prices,the evolution of a diversified social structure and the upgrading of cultural experiences.(3)The formation mechanism of rural gentrification in Shawan Special Township can be explained by production and consumption mechanisms,of which traditional cultural heritage is the main reason for the consumption formation mechanism;improving infrastructure and providing community services help to attract the middle class to invest capital and technology into the countryside;and the role of the government is crucial in planning the way forward for Shawan Ancient Township and vigorously promoting development through relevant funding and government measures.There are still shortcomings in this paper’s research due to the difficulty of stripping and obtaining regional data,and the adverse effects of the three-year epidemic.Future research directions can focus on the gentrification development patterns of different types of characteristic towns,adopt a tracking study,obtain more surveys,and analyse the formation mechanism of rural gentrification in depth from a longer time scale.