Is China's Rural Revitalization Good Enough? Evidence from Spatial Agglomeration and Cluster Analysis

Rural revitalization is an indispensable part of sustainable economic development in China. This paper proposes a new index to capture and assess rural revitalization (RR) in terms of five dimensions, namely, thriving businesses, pleasant living environments, social etiquette and civility, effective governance, and prosperity. Using spatial and cluster analyses on annual data of 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities of China from 2010 to 2020, we find that: (1) China's RR is growing year by year during the sample period, yet the overall level of RR is still low, with a national average of merely 0.47 in 2020, and that of the top province Jiangsu only 0.64; (2) The spatial distribution of RR in eastern provinces show high and high (HH) agglomeration, while that in northeastern and western provinces exhibit low and low (LL) agglomeration; and (3) The development level of RR is highly heterogeneous, suggesting that development disparities exist, and deserve the government's attention. The study suggests some strategies for improving RR in China. In particular, the study sheds light on how to promote RR effectively for local governments to achieve sustainable economic development.