Mechanisms of Rural Sustainable Development Driven by Land Use Restructuring: A Perspective of “Scale-Space” Interactions

Abstract

Regional development issues can be reflected in land use and addressed through land use restructuring. It is commonly recognized that strengthening the role of small towns in the coordinated and sustainable development of counties, towns, and villages is effective in solving land use problems. However, relevant studies do not focus on the county space and lack scale extensions to reflect the role and status of small towns. In this paper, an analytical framework is developed and some research hypotheses are proposed from the perspective of “Scale-Space” interaction. Then, a county in central China is used as a case study to reveal the mechanism of rural land use restructuring by comparing the changes in land use structure in different locations in recent years. The study finds that under the constraint of the basic principle of “Requisition-Compensation Balance”, the county has reorganized the spatial and landscape pattern of the countryside through extensive “demolition of the old” and “construction of the new”. Among them, towns that are distant from the county center, while improving their cohesion, give full play to their role as regional sub-centers, and are expected to become an important force driving urbanization in the future.