How to Realize the Integration of Urbanization and Rural Village Renewal Strategies in Rural Areas: The Case Study of Laizhou, China

Abstract

To promote the coordinated development of urban and rural areas, China has adopted a hybrid strategy of urbanization and rural village renewal. Due to the large development differences between villages, choosing appropriate strategies is significant for rural development. By introducing a new idea to promote urban–rural integration development through a “rural cluster”, this paper explores the comparative advantages of villages in urbanization and renewal, identifies the spatial interaction between villages, and proposes a rural cluster strategy based on the same characteristics and close relationships. Taking Laizhou city, a coastal county in eastern China, as the study area, it provides a new way to deal with village problems at a small scale but of a large number due to difficult development in China. The results indicated that some villages have both high or low rural urbanization suitability (RUS) and village renewal potential (VRP), which makes it difficult to choose development strategies. Compared with the VRP, the spatial interaction of villages in the RUS is closer, but fewer villages participated. The results of village clustering show that the scale of different village clusters and the degree of interaction between villages in Laizhou differ greatly, and village clusters across townships are very common. Since the driving forces of the different scale of rural groups vary, this paper suggests that the development direction and investment focus should be determined according to the scale and characteristics of individual rural groups.