Measurement of Urban–Rural Integration Level in Suburbs and Exurbs of Big Cities Based on Land-Use Change in Inland China: Chengdu

Abstract

Urban growth and development can be interpreted as a combined process of “urban spillover” and “local urban sprawl”, from overall urban–rural development to urban–rural integration (URI). The process of suburban development in western China is a complex system, which reflects the characteristics of industrialization and urbanization in western China. Chengdu is the most representative of the big cities for economic and social structure change in western China. To analyze the changes on URI degree based on the built-up land change, and to explore the practical URI paths in both the suburbs and exurbs of Chengdu, we use land-use remote-sensing monitoring data from 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 in this paper, whereafter URI indexes are built from space, economy, and society. The land-use change of the suburbs and exurbs of Chengdu from 2000 to 2015 are analyzed by ArcGIS. Results indicate that the biggest growth part of built-up land is other built-up land, followed by commercial/industrial land, and the last is residential land. The built-up land spreads quickly from 2000 to 2005, and shows distinct separation characteristics in the suburbs of Chengdu. It is relatively slow in the exurbs. Moreover, built-up land connects better in the suburbs than in the exurbs. Based on the change of built-up land in Chengdu from 2000 to 2015, spatial integration data are calculated, economic integration and social integration data are chosen from statistics, and the change of URI levels in the suburbs and exurbs of Chengdu is calculated. The results show that first, economic integration and social integration have great influence on URI, and their effects are increasing. The significance of spatial integration in URI has gradually reduced. Second, URI levels in counties of the suburbs and exurbs of Chengdu rose from 2000 to 2015, more highly in the suburbs than in the exurbs. URI in counties of the exurbs showed a marked difference. URI in the southeast counties of the exurbs is generally high. The foundation of URI is weaker in the counties and districts in the southwest counties of the exurbs in Chengdu, but it is growing steadily in URI, and the northern counties in the exurbs of Chengdu are in the process of rapid URI. The paths of URI in the suburbs and exurbs in Chengdu can be roughly divided into an industry-developing model in the suburbs, service-industry-developing model in the suburbs, agriculture-developing model in the exurbs, service-industry-developing model in the exurbs and infrastructure-developing model in the exurbs.