Urban-rural interaction patterns and dynamic land use: implications for urban-rural integration in China

Working within the context of enlarged urban-rural inequalities in China, this paper aims to identify different urban-rural interaction patterns and to propose specific ways of achieving urban-rural integration with respect to those different patterns. The paper establishes a strong connection between resource flows and environmental change. An urban-rural interaction index is put forward, based upon the division of the counties and urban districts of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Region into three groups. The "high urban agglomeration" group includes those urban districts and adjacent counties currently experiencing rapid socioeconomic growth. The "medium peri-urban agglomeration" group consists of counties surrounding areas in the first group, which have moderate population growth and moderate economic growth. The "low rural periphery agglomeration'' group, located in the northern and western parts of the region, has slow socioeconomic growth. Within the "high urban agglomeration'' group, the factors of arable land and built-up land have the highest rates of change, while in the third group, these factors have the lowest rate of change. Moderate rates of land-use change characterize the counties within the second group. Three specific ways of achieving urban-rural integration in the three urban-rural interaction patterns are proposed in accordance with the research findings.