Abstract
To understand rural sustainability, it is necessary to scrutinize the relationship between rural transition and economic growth. The article uses rural multifunctionality as an analytical lens through which to view the processes of the development of rural occupancy. There is a pressing need to ascertain how to quantify rural multifunctionality and reveal its spatial differentiation, as well as garner and investigate how multifunctional rural transition (MRT) responds to economic growth. This paper employed the concept of sampletransect to compensate for data deficiencies in a long temporal series and established the indicator system from three different aspects-living function, production function, and ecological function-to measure MRT along China's Yangtze River Transect. Our analysis showed that living function and production function display an increasing trend from underdeveloped western regions to eastern economically prosperous regions, and represent a high degree surrounding urban agglomerations, while economic growth only leads to a statistically insignificant decreasing trend in ecological function. The MRT resulting from multiple factors is much diverse, complex, and sophisticated; therefore, it should be understood within a framework incorporating both endogenous and exogenous factors. According to the results, it is thus important to formulate differentiated managerial countermeasures corresponding to the economic development level rather than the uniform regulations.
Highlights
Rural, a conception initially flat and uni-dimensional, has been made complex and ambiguous (Wilson, 2001), especially in rural areas of the developed or rapidly urbanized economies (Murdoch, 2000; Woods, 2010)
Our analysis showed that living function and production function display an increasing trend from underdeveloped western regions to eastern economically prosperous regions, and represent a high degree surrounding urban agglomerations, while economic growth only leads to a statistically insignificant decreasing trend in ecological function
Attempting to understand how rural multifunctionality responds to economic growth, we established indicator systems with three dimensions for measuring multifunctional rural transition (MRT): living function, production function, and ecological function, and quantitatively examined their links to economic growth, as well as delineated the spatial pattern by employing exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA)
Summary
A conception initially flat and uni-dimensional, has been made complex and ambiguous (Wilson, 2001), especially in rural areas of the developed or rapidly urbanized economies (Murdoch, 2000; Woods, 2010). To clearly sketch the plurality of rural areas, “rural multifunctionality” – an integrated theoretical perspective – grows in popularity amid the strands of intellectual explanations to the rural changes. It derives from the research about the function variation of agricultural systems (CEC, 1988), which is of great significance for sustainable rural development (Renting et al, 2009). Rural multifunctionality performs a non-absolute and neutralized response oscillating between agriculture-centered “productionism” and the “post-productionism” with anti-agriculture philosophy (Wilson, 2001) As it treats agricultural production as a requisite but deems it insufficient to portray the whole picture of rural. The “multifunctionality” integrally represents the rural “diversity, non-linearity and spatial heterogeneity” (Almstedt et al, 2014), constructing a networked and innovative fabric of rural, yet differs from another definition of “rurality” which assembles overcomplicated and metaphysical elements (Woods, 2010)
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