Abstract
Special functional areas and poor areas tend to spatially overlap, and poverty is a common feature of both. Special poor areas, taken as a kind of “policy space,” have attracted the interest of researchers and policymakers around the world. This study proposes a basic concept of special poor areas and uses this concept to develop a method to identify them. Poor counties in China are taken as the basic research unit and overlaps in spatial attributes including old revolutionary bases, borders, ecological degradation, and ethnic minorities, are used to identify special poor areas. The authors then analyze their basic quantitative structure and pattern of distribution to determine the geographical bases’ formation and development. The results show that 304 counties in China, covering a vast territory of 12 contiguous areas that contain a small population, are lagging behind the rest of the country. These areas are characterized by rich energy and resource endowments, important ecological functions, special historical status, and concentrated poverty. They are considered “special poor” for geographical reasons such as a relatively harsh natural geographical environment, remote location, deteriorating ecological environment, and an inadequate infrastructure network and public service system. Some areas suffer from underdevelopment and even lack the infrastructure for basic living. In order to prevent further deterioration of the economic, social, and ecological environments in these areas, targeted policies need to be implemented.
Highlights
Special functional areas are areas with unique functions and a specific status in the context of national development, usually due to their resource endowments, natural geographical conditions, or location, and mainly include border areas, areas composed of ethnic minorities, those housing old revolutionary bases, areas featuring ecological degradation, resource-exhausted cities, areas housing industrial bases and post-disaster reconstruction areas lagging behind in development
Special poor areas are overlaps between poor areas and the special functional areas, and consist of border areas, areas composed of ethnic minorities, areas housing old revolutionary bases, and areas featuring ecological degradation
Some have mixed-functions; for instance, the interlaced farming-pastoral-forestry zones in north China and southern Gansu are important for ecological restoration and ethnic unity, the southern Jiangxi, Dabie Mountain area and Sichuan-Shaanxi area house old revolutionary bases and in turn protect historical heritage and the region’s ecology, the Yunnan-Guangxi area has the dual attributes of a border area and housing old revolutionary bases, focused on protecting historical heritage and providing border defense, southern Gansu attends to ecological restoration and ethnic unity, and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia area, Luliang Mountain area, and Yunnan-Guizhou-Guangxi area focus on ecological restoration and historical heritage owing to their dual role as areas with old revolutionary bases and responsibilities of mitigating ecological degradation
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The other kind of area identified by Canada is termed a special area; these regions are poor in basic endowments or located in remote border areas They lack basic infrastructure and public service systems and require structural economic adjustment [7]. Researchers have identified a large spatial overlap between poverty-stricken areas, areas along the border, those featuring ethnic minorities, and those housing old revolutionary bases [23,27,28]. This study uses poverty-stricken areas, areas housing old revolutionary bases, areas composed of ethnic minorities, border regions, and areas featuring ecological degradation, to establish a method to identify special poor areas in China, depict the characteristics and spatial patterns of their distribution, and analyze the geographical similarities of their locations in order to provide a reference point for the formulation of appropriate targeted policiesse
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