Village classification in metropolitan suburbs from the perspective of urban-rural integration and improvement strategies: A case study of Wuhan, central China
Introduction
The primary development mode in most regions has long been city-focused, which results in the widening of the urban-rural divide and the phenomenon of rural decline (Liu and Li, 2017). Urban-rural integration is defined as an ideal urban-rural relationship that enables elements to intersect, permeate, and integrate freely, thereby leading to the co-development of urban and rural areas. It has been an important solution to address rural decline, promote rural revitalization, and implement sustainable regional development (Liu, 2018).
The traditional urban-rural dichotomy divides the spatial structure of a region into cities and the countryside. However, a broad and continuous transition zone exists between urban and rural areas, which have both urban and rural features. On the one hand, this zone is the most active area in urbanization and the land use structure changes rapidly, which is mainly manifested as the transformation from non-construction land to urban construction land. On the other hand, this zone is the most significant region in the succession of the agricultural landscape to the urban landscape and is the region where urban and rural environment elements intersect. Owing to its transitional characteristics, dynamics, continuity, and gradual change, scholars have deconstructed the traditional urban-rural dichotomy and considered this region an independent geographical unit that is distinguished from the urban and rural areas and called it “suburbs” (Tian, 2020).
Suburbs have been considered in some strategies and policies regarding urban-rural integration. For example, to ensure regionally balanced development and avoid excessive economic and demographic concentrations in the core area of the EU, the “European Spatial Development Perspective” (ESDP) proposed a polycentric development mode (Faludi and Waterhout, 2002). By strengthening the internal incentives (basic infrastructure) and external incentives (transport network and cooperation partnership), ESDP reconciles socioeconomic development with ecological and cultural functions and promotes cooperation and coordination between polycentric urban areas and surrounding peripheral areas. Similarly, consideration of the suburbs can be found in the City Planning of Japan (Millward, 2006), the New Village Movement of South Korea (Kwon, 2010), and African city planning (Turok, 2015).
As the primary region influenced by urban expansion and the pilot region of rural development, the integration of suburban villages is important in coordinating the urban-rural relationship. The suburbs are located in the periphery of the city, which is a connecting area between the city and the remote countryside. It exhibits a superior geographical location and economic conditions and is driven by the city. At the same time, it attracts part of the rural labor force and promotes the development of the countryside. In this context, the integration of suburban villages has a positive significance for the coordination and co-development of urban and rural areas. Conversely, the land use function in suburbs is complex, including urban functional spaces such as industrial, residential, and commercial lands brought by urban development and the production-oriented rural space that has not been occupied by urban land. In the process of rapid land use transformation and regional spatial function change, the construction of suburban villages is not under the same standard and systematic control as that of central cities. It is characterized by high construction density, low level of public services, poor public safety, and underdeveloped health conditions, which have negative impacts on the integrated development of urban and rural areas. For megacities, rapid urban expansion, wide suburban areas, population, and industrial clusters are more prone to the phenomenon of suburban sprawl, which leads to problems such as shortage of land use resources, destruction of the ecological environment, and imbalanced social and economic development. Due to the uncertainty and ambiguity of the division of suburban areas, research, analysis, evaluation, and regulation of the integration of suburban villages have always been lacking.
To fill this research gap, a logistic-geographically weighted regression (GWR) model based on local parameter estimation was proposed to identify the spatial scope of the suburbs. The urban-rural integration types of suburban villages were then differentiated from socioeconomic, spatial, and ecological dimensions. Finally, targeted optimization and regulation strategies were provided. Fig. 1 shows the flow chart of this study.
Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of this study.
Section snippets
Defining suburbs
The origin of studies on suburbs can be traced back to studies on traditional urban forms in the late 19th century. Concentric zone, sector, and multiple nuclei theories, which describe the urban morphological structure in the early 20th century, also include related ideas about suburbs. After the Second World War, cities worldwide expanded rapidly, and suburbanization and rural urbanization occurred simultaneously. The boundaries between urban and rural spaces have become increasingly blurred.
Study area
In 2018, the GDP of Wuhan was $224 billion US dollars, which ranked 9th nationally, and the total area of Wuhan ranked 10th. Wuhan has flat terrain and is characterized by transportation accessibility. It is representative of a Chinese mega-city. In the past 20 years, the population urbanization rate of Wuhan has increased from 58.88% to 73.2%. The construction land of Wuhan changed from 874.75 km2 to 1496.12 km2. Wuhan is composed of 13 municipal districts, consisting of 125 towns and 3026
Identifying suburbs
To evaluate suburban integration, first, the spatial scope of the suburbs was determined. Based on the definition of suburbs, this study selected six indicators that can distinguish suburbs at the village scale: - public road mileage per unit area (km/km2), - population density, - GDP density, - POI density, - construction land area density, and - landscape confusion index (, where W is the landscape confusion degree, is the area ratio of a certain land type, and
Mapping the boundaries of suburban Wuhan
According to Wuhan City Planning, the administrative units of Wuhan include only urban and suburban towns. To improve the classification results, two logistic-GWR models were constructed for urban-suburban and urban-suburban-rural classifications. The and AICc values for the dual classification were 0.75 and 214.11, and those for the triple division were 0.56 and 507.1. Hence, the dual classification was chosen, and villages of Wuhan were classified into urban and suburban types. The overall
Why mapping suburbs is important
The characteristics of suburbs can be summarized in three ways. First, suburbs are characterized by the transition from urban to rural in terms of population composition, lifestyle, land use, and landscape functions. Second, suburbs change dynamically. With the process of urbanization, urban land continues to expand, as shown by the conversion of non-construction land to construction land. Urban land expansion also drives changes in the spatial scope of suburbs. Finally, suburbs have the social
Conclusion
This study delineates the boundaries of the suburbs based on multi-source data and the logistic-GWR model. Then, this study evaluated socioeconomic, spatial, and ecological integration and conducted an integration-type division at the village scale. Specifically, socioeconomic integration is evaluated based on the socioeconomic symbiosis of the urban-suburban system, spatial integration is estimated based on the public transportation network, and ecological integration is assessed based on the
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yasi Tian: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Funding acquisition. Jing Qian: Data collection, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Lei Wang: Writing – review & editing.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 41901203) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant number 2019M661919).
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