With the socio-economic transformation, the recombination of regional development factors and the followed reconstruction of the rural development elements system have profoundly changed the rural landscape of the Kashgar region in Northwest China. The factors affecting the rural production and lifestyle interact with each other, shaping different types of rural development. Accordingly, basing on the main factors influencing the rural development ability and long-term development potential, the assessment indicator system of rural comprehensive development (RCD) was established to reveal the differentiation of rural development and identify the dominant factors affecting rural development. The principal component analysis method and the cluster analysis method was used to distinguish the different types. The results show that the high-level rural development areas are mainly concentrated in the center of the region, while the low-level areas are mainly distributed in the periphery, with significant spatial differentiation characteristics. We divided the rural development into three categories and 11 zones for which the basic natural conditions and external challenges are different. The categories reflect three possible results of rural development: grow, decline, and vanish, which is in the industrialization development stage. With the transformation of human society and the change of urban–rural relationship in its mode and content, the external economy, society, and changing environment has put pressures on rural areas. Therefore, according to different rural development types, it is necessary to take measures to strengthen the rural areas to cope with external environmental challenges.
Economic spatial polarization is a manifestation of unbalanced urban development. To study the unbalanced development of Chinese cities, this paper selects 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, introduces the polarization index and exploratory spatio-temporal analysis to portray their spatio-temporal evolution process, and analyzes the differences in spatial polarization patterns of economic development in three dimensions of economic quantity, quality, and structure. Finally, we use the geographic detector model to explore the driving factors and then propose corresponding policy recommendations. The results show that: (1) the degree of difference in economic development in the YRD region narrowed from 2000 to 2019, and the spatial polarization level of urban economic development showed a fluctuating downward trend, among which the spatial polarization level of the economic structure dimension has been increasing. (2) In terms of spatial distribution, the “Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration” has economic spatial polarization in the YRD region has become the peak contiguous zone, and the spatial polarization of economic quantity and quality dimensions has formed a “polycentric” pattern, while the spatial polarization of economic structure dimensions shows a stable “one core, multiple sub-center” distribution. (3) From the evolution of spatial polarization, most cities have strong spatial locking characteristics without a transition. Spatially positive polarized are concentrated in the YRD urban agglomeration, and the inter-city neighboring relations are mainly positive synergistic growth, while the negatively polarized cities are mostly distributed in the peripheral areas of the YRD and the neighboring relations are negative synergistic growth. At the same time, the spatially positive polarization effect of the economic quantity dimension and the spatially negative polarization effect of the economic structure dimension among cities are more significant. (4) The economic spatial polarization in the YRD region is mainly dominated by market prosperity and urbanization level, while the driving effect of scientific and technological innovation development on the urban economy has also been expanding in recent years. Promoting the reasonable allocation of marketization, urbanization, and technology among cities with positive and negative spatial polarization in the future will contribute to balanced urban and regional economic development in a coordinated and orderly manner.
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