PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2015, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (10): 1266-1274.doi: 10.18306/dlkxjz.2015.10.007

• Urban and Regional Study • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Characteristics of change in integrated rural-urban development: a case study of Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality

Jiemin LIU, Bin LV*()   

  1. School of City and Environment, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • Received:2014-10-01 Accepted:2015-03-01 Online:2015-10-20 Published:2015-10-20
  • Contact: Bin LV E-mail:binlu@pku.edu.cn

Abstract:

Existing research on evaluating the level of integrated rural-urban development by quantitative assessment methods often fails to separate the overall development index and coordinated development index and demonstrate cross-sectional and time series data simultaneously, and results in the "black box" effect by data aggregation. This article proposes a three dimensional coordinate system, including overall development index, coordinated development index, and temporal dimension and then converts the three dimensional coordinate system into a two dimensional coordinate system with the "nine squares" method, thereby making it possible to quantitatively evaluate the characteristics of change of each city within a city group. The level of balance and integration of development between urban and rural areas is divided into economic, industrial, infrastructural, and public services. An assessment on the characteristics of change of 19 cities in the Sichuan and Chongqing region during 2006-2011 was carried out. The research result shows that cities in the region achieved remarkable results in reducing the gap in economy and public services fields between urban and rural areas, but large gaps in the fields of industry and infrastructure still exist. The progress in Chongqing Municipality and the city of Chengdu is much greater than in other cities in the region. This research can provide theoretical guidance and methodological tools for improving rural-urban development in the Sichuan and Chongqing region, and can be useful for the evaluation of integrated rural-urban development in other cities of China.

Key words: integrated rural-urban development, economy, industries, infrastructure, public services, Sichuan, Chongqing