From the overall point of view, there are three main modes of the current urban and rural spatial layout adjustment work: first, the large-scale adjustment and merger work carried out in the eastern plain area on the basis of the division of village types, which is more typical such as Shandong's "co-residence in villages"; second, the small adjustment and agglomeration carried out by the developed eastern provinces while maintaining the overall stability of the village layout, which is more typical such as Jiangsu's "relatively concentrated residence"; the third is the relocation of poverty alleviation and ecological migration carried out in the central and western regions under the framework of poverty alleviation. It also objectively plays the function of spatial layout adjustment. For the above three types, this paper selects three sets of typical modes, introduces their implementation process, and briefly comments on their operation methods and effects.
I. Shandong "Co-living in Villages"
Shandong is one of the first provinces to carry out village adjustment and merger, which has a lot to do with its rural population layout and spatial layout. According to the relevant person in charge, Shandong currently has 69,500 administrative villages, ranking first in the country; the average population is 530 people, ranking second from the bottom in the country. For a long time, the highly dispersed village and population layout has become a major constraint on the development of rural areas in Shandong, and the desire and motivation of the whole province to optimize the spatial layout of urban and rural areas has always been relatively strong. In the 2006 new rural construction plan, it is proposed to guide strong villages, strong enterprises to merge small villages and weak villages, promote village integration and population agglomeration in areas where conditions permit, and build new rural communities. In the 2014 plan, it is planned to form about 7,000 new rural communities by 2030, and 30,000 villages of various types will be retained and renovated (Table 1). In 2019, 21,000 villages were explicitly relocated and withdrawn in the province's village classification, and the number was basically the same as that of the 2014 plan.
The spatial layout adjustment of urban and rural areas in Shandong has been continuously carried out for nearly 20 years, and more than 6,000 new rural communities have been built, and the overall progress is faster in the peninsula area than the inland area, and the northwest of Lu is faster than the southwest of Lu and the south of Lu. Through adjustment, the spatial layout of urban and rural areas has been significantly optimized, the living conditions of the masses have been gradually improved, the construction of village organizations has been strengthened, and rural public services have achieved effective extension coverage. Of course, in the process of implementation, local governments have some impatient and aggressive practices, such as low compensation standards, demolition first and then construction, and insufficient respect for the will of the masses, which must be thoroughly corrected and taken as a warning. However, it should be noted that these are all issues of working methods and balance of interests, and this cannot affect the judgment of the necessity of adjusting the spatial layout of urban and rural areas.
Second, Jiangsu "relatively concentrated residence"
Jiangsu is also one of the earliest regions in the country to carry out the adjustment of urban and rural spatial layout. In 2006, Jiangsu launched the layout planning of towns and villages in the province, planning to use 20-25 years to gradually optimize and adjust about 250,000 natural villages in the province to 40,000 "planned settlements". This plan has been implemented for 15 years, and there are currently 17,000 administrative villages and 176,000 natural villages in Jiangsu, which can be said to have achieved positive results. According to a survey in 2018, there are 225 "hollow villages" in Jiangsu, accounting for 1.3% of the total number of administrative villages in the province, which is the lowest in the country, of which 153 are in northern Jiangsu, 72 are in central Jiangsu, and there are none in southern Jiangsu. Overall, the concentration of village layout in Jiangsu is relatively high, the proportion of "hollow villages" is relatively small, and compared with Shandong and inland provinces, the pressure of urban and rural spatial layout adjustment is much smaller.
A relatively poor rural house in southern Jiangsu
Since the 80th century, southern Jiangsu has focused on the construction of "small towns", and gradually formed a pattern of large, medium, and small towns with a reasonable layout, and the existing villages have basically met the requirements of ecological livability in terms of public services, living functions, and living environments. Overall, the integration of urban and rural areas in southern Jiangsu has been basically realized, the urban and rural population layout has been relatively balanced, and the evolution of urban-rural relations in the future will be a long-term process, and it is not appropriate to take large-scale human interventions. At present, the focus of the spatial layout adjustment of urban and rural areas in Jiangsu is mainly in central Jiangsu and northern Jiangsu, especially in northern Jiangsu, which is under great pressure.
Since the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, Huai'an and other places in northern Jiangsu have carried out the optimization of the layout of townships and towns and the relatively centralized residence of rural areas, and coordinated the promotion of new urbanization and rural revitalization. Hongze District of Huai'an City has jurisdiction over Hongze Lake, the water area in the area accounts for 56%, the population is only 380,000, and the lack of popularity in the town has always been a major bottleneck restricting the development of the district. Hongze District plans to build 30 relatively concentrated settlements in the whole district by 2022, of which 20 are around the town, giving priority to guiding the relocated peasant households to live close to the town; 10 in rural areas, basically realizing the centralized residence of all qualified farmers. Through this plan, about 20,000 rural households and 70,000 farmers will be guided in an orderly manner to achieve relatively concentrated residence. At present, the relatively concentrated living in rural areas has been comprehensively promoted in northern Jiangsu, which will lay a solid foundation for Jiangsu to achieve comprehensive rural revitalization.
Third, Shaanxi ex-situ poverty alleviation and relocation
In recent years, in accordance with the requirements of the central government's poverty alleviation work, the central and western provinces have carried out relocation work in deeply impoverished areas, which should be regarded as part of the adjustment of the spatial layout of urban and rural areas. This article reviews this policy using Yaozhou District, Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, as an example.
Yaozhou District of Tongchuan City is located in the northern part of the Guanzhong Plain and the southern edge of the Weibei Plateau, formerly known as Yao County, where the first mountain base area in the northwest was born - the Shaanxi-Gansu-Bianzhaojin Revolutionary Base Area. Yaozhou District belongs to the national poverty alleviation and development work key counties (districts), when the poverty alleviation attack started, there were 58 poor villages in the whole district, 7179 households and 21877 people were registered as poor people, and the incidence of poverty was 12.3%. In 2011, Yaozhou District formulated the "Overall Planning for the Overall Urban and Rural Development Planning of Yaozhou District of Tongchuan City" (2011-2030) to make arrangements for the spatial layout of urban and rural areas within the region. According to the plan, the villages that have entered the scope of the urban planning area will be withdrawn and merged into the town as a whole, and the natural villages with less than 100 people will be gradually relocated and withdrawn, and the remote villages with a slightly larger population will be closely observed and withdrawn when conditions permit in the long run (Table 2). In 2016, Yaozhou District formulated a special plan for poverty alleviation and relocation, and implemented the relocation policy of poor households in respect of the wishes of the masses for villages where one side could not feed the people of the other side, and other relocated households carried out the overall relocation with reference to the implementation of synchronous migration policies such as disaster avoidance ecology.
Zhaojin Town, where the Zhaojin Revolutionary Base is located, has a deep mountain ditch and a large amount of infrastructure debts, and the incidence of poverty is 7 percentage points higher than the regional average, and 6 of the 7 deeply impoverished villages in the whole district are in Zhaojin. According to the plan, 22,649 people from 6,561 households in the old revolutionary area of Zhaojin District were relocated in Yaozhou District. In the process of spatial layout adjustment, in view of the scattered residents of Zhaojin Town, the small scale of the township, and the lack of leading industries, Yaozhou District has tilted towards the township in terms of population layout, industrial layout, capital investment, etc., and has built a poor and backward mountain town into a modern red tourist town in just a few years.
Comparison of the old and new towns in Zhaojin Town, Shaanxi Province
Overall, Yaozhou District has made full use of the relocation policy for poverty alleviation and relocation, and has moderately expanded the scope of urban and rural spatial layout adjustment in combination with the previous planning, and realized the coordinated promotion of new urbanization and rural revitalization. If all localities can make full use of the relocation policy, it will not only effectively solve the problem of poverty alleviation of the deeply impoverished population, but also lay an important spatial foundation for rural revitalization. Of course, subject to the constraints of basic conditions such as natural space, development level and population layout, the adjustment of urban and rural spatial layout in the central and western regions cannot be measured and compared with the eastern region at the same level. In the future, the spatial layout adjustment in rural revitalization must also formulate differentiated promotion plans for different basic conditions.
(The author is Chen Ming, associate researcher of the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; this article is excerpted from Chen Ming, "Urban and Rural Spatial Restructuring and Governance Reconstruction in Rural Revitalization", Journal of Nanjing Agricultural University (Social Science Edition), No. 4, 2021.) ）