The Rural Livability Evaluation and Its Governance Path Based on the Left-Behind Perspective: Evidence from the Oasis Area of the Hexi Corridor in China

Abstract

The evaluation of rural livability for different groups of left-behind people and proposing classified governance paths are of great practical significance to solve the problem of sustainable development of left-behind villages. Taking Jinchang, China as an example, this paper aims to construct a rural livability evaluation index system based on identifying the types of left-behind villages, which combines the “individuality + commonality” of different left-behind subjects, analyzes the livability level of left-behind villages and proposes a classified governance path to help solve the problem of sustainable development of left-behind villages. The results show the following: (1) The types of left-behind villages are mainly left-behind children and left-behind elderly types, accounting for 68.75% of the total number of left-behind villages. (2) There are large differences in the livability of individual characteristics of the villages. The average livability for children is the largest, reaching 0.6608. The average livability for women is the smallest, being only 0.1418. The livability values for the elderly and children are mainly in the medium-value areas, while the livability for women is mainly in the low-value areas. (3) The overall livability level of the villages is low, mainly falling in the low-value areas. The evaluation units with values higher than the average accounted for 40.625% of the total. The level of meeting the demands of the left-behind population in villages is low. The overall levels of economic development, public services, infrastructure, and configuration need to be optimized and improved, and the living and production conditions need to be further improved. (4) According to “left-behind + livable”, we classified the villages into five types: optimizing and upgrading villages, improving short-board villages, balanced developing villages, upgrading potential villages, and comprehensive upgrading villages. In the future, it is necessary to carry out classified governance from various aspects, such as improving governance, making up for shortcomings, coordinating and balancing, and comprehensively improving quality to achieve the ultimate goal of sustainable rural development.