| As an advanced stage of economic and social development,urban-rural integration(URI)is crucial to the modernization of China,which is also a key proposition for the structural transformation and sustainable development of China’s economy as well as society at the current stage.In the current dual context of new-type urbanization and the implementation of rural revitalization strategies,how to promote integrated urban-rural development and solve the problems including the unbalanced urban-rural development and the inadequate rural development has become the focus of attention in various disciplinary fields.As the only municipality directly under the Central Government of the western regions,Chongqing has long faced the dilemma of an unbalanced urban-rural development due to its socio-economic and regional structural characteristics of "big city,big rural area,big mountainous area and big reservoir area".As one of the urban-rural integration pilot zones,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to carry out the quantitative measurement of URI and explore the path and model of urban-rural integration development in Chongqing.This study is focused on the core theme of how to improve the URI level,and the connotation of the concept of URI is discerned based on a systematic review of domestic and international studies.Then,an evaluation index system for the development level of URI is constructed to measure the urban-rural integration index(URII)since the administration municipality of Chongqing.Subsequently,the spatial differentiation characteristics of its URI level are analyzed based on 37 counties in Chongqing in 2019.The main influencing factors affecting the development level of URI in counties and the driving factors leading to the spatial differentiation are found quantitatively.Finally,the territorial types of URI in Chongqing are classified based on the URII and structural characteristics of units,and targeted policy recommendations are put forward to provide a reference for decision-making on promoting Chongqing’s URI level.The main findings of this study are as follows:(1)The processes of Chongqing’s urban-rural development have experienced three stages since it became a municipality: "initial integrated urban-rural development,accelerated reshaping of urban-rural relations,and integrated urban-rural development in the new era".During the study period,the evolution of the URII demonstrates a U-shaped curve with 2006 as the inflection point,after which the URI level continuously increases.However,the average annual growth rate(AGR)of URII has declined as the socio-economic supply-side reforms have intensified.(2)The URI in Chongqing is progressing in an orderly manner,with the growth in population integration index,economic integration index,social integration index,spatial integration index and ecological integration index of urban as well as rural areas.However,an imbalance is shown in its overall structure in the study,as is reflected by the population integration index and the social integration index remained at a low level for a long time.This indicates that the dichotomous structure of urban and rural societies has not been fully broken.(3)The analysis of the spatial pattern shows that there are obvious spatial differences of URI levels in Chongqing counties,it may be related to the starting point of counties to promote urban-rural integration development.The spatial clustering results show that there is a significant positive spatial correlation among the level of URI in counties,showing a clustering distribution pattern,with their hot spots distributed in the metropolitan areas and cold spots distributed in the southeast as well as northeast regions of Chongqing.Then,the decomposition of the sources of regional gap shows that differences among the three regions of the metropolitan areas,northeast and southeast part of Chongqing,are the main source of the total regional gap in the level of URI among the counties of Chongqing.In addition,the differences among counties within the metropolitan areas contribute mostly to intra-regional differences.(4)The spatial differentiation of URI levels in Chongqing counties are caused by the interaction of multiple factors.Among them,including both socio-economic factors such as urbanization rate,urban-rural income ratio,social security and employment expenditure ratio,and facility-service factors such as the density of financial institutions,density of tourist attractions and Internet coverage,as well as natural geographical factors such as slopes and arable lands resource area.The results of the regression coefficient show that there are differences in the influence degree and the effect of each factor on counties.Overall,increasing the urbanization rate,the density of financial institutions and Internet coverage are conducive to URI.In contrast,the regional slope and the urban-rural income ratio have a dampening effect on the development of URI.(5)Taking into account the structural similarity and continuity within the subregions,the study is divided into six territorial types in Chongqing based on the level of URI,geographical environment,location conditions,agricultural and rural development base as well as socio-economic development context in the counties.Then,based on the policy opportunities,socio-economic base and urban-rural characteristics of each area,targeted development strategies and recommendations are put forward.The spatio-temporal characteristics of URI in Chongqing are systematically analyzed in this study.Meanwhile,the inner mechanism of regional integrated development is revealed,and development strategies based on the zoning of urbanrural integrated development levels are proposed,which contribute to the practice of regional integrated governance and sustainable development. |
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