Regional Differences in the Quality of Rural Development in Guangdong Province and Influencing Factors

Abstract

Achieving rural revitalization is the aim of building a strong modern socialist country. However, regional heterogeneity exists in rural development in general, and studying regional differences in rural development quality is an important prerequisite for developing specific policies for rural revitalization. This paper takes 20 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province as the research objects and constructs a rural-development-quality-evaluation system based on four dimensions: industrial revitalization, rural affluence, social development, and environmental livability; combines the entropy value method, hierarchical analysis method, and TOPSIS to complete the evaluation process; uses a spatial autocorrelation model and cold–hot spot analysis to explore the characteristics of regional heterogeneity of rural development in Guangdong Province; and relies on stepwise regression analysis to clarify the main influencing factors. The results show the following: (1) The average value of rural development quality in the province is 0.342, with “high in the middle and low in the surrounding area” as the main spatial characteristic. (2) The average value of environmental livability dimension is 0.580, and the high-value area is found in the northeastern part of the province. There is an outer circle distribution structure with Dongguan City as the core of the high-value area, and the score gradually decreases outward, while the average value of all other dimensions is less than 0.350. The mean value of all other dimensions is less than 0.350. (3) The social development dimension shows a cold–hot spot distribution of “hot in the northeast and low in the middle”, the rural development quality and other development dimensions show a cold–hot spot spatial pattern of “high value gathering in the middle and low value gathering in the northeast”, and there is no cold spot gathering in the environmental livability dimension. (4) The average collective assets and the construction rate of science-based communities are the main driving factors of rural development, while the coverage rate of service institutions and the Engel coefficient are the main hindering factors. This paper enriches the rural development level measurement system, clarifies the spatial differentiation and main influencing factors of rural development in Guangdong Province, and helps to provide scientific support and a theoretical basis for the differentiated promotion of rural revitalization.