Construction of evaluating indicator system of urban-rural interaction and the comparative analysis of regional urban-rural correlative-degree in China

Urban-rural integration is an urbanization process suitable to Chinese conditions. For China it is a new task. The focus of research on urban-rural interaction and integration is to evaluate the status and development extent of the urban-rural relationship scientifically. Urban-rural interaction and integration means the highest stage of urbanization. Urbanization means the absolute equality between the urban areas and rural areas. This paper tries to debate and testify the predications that urban-rural integration is actually the free change of natural resources and economy and social elements between city and countryside, and the amount and speed of the exchange are decided by the correlative-degree of urban and rural areas.For a long period of time, we only used one evaluating indicator-the proportion of non-agricultural population to total population to measure the degree of urbanization. We think that is far from enough. The equality between city and countryside also includes the equality of status and other rights. So we start our tentative research based on the analysis of the representation, characterization and the influencing factors of urban-rural interaction, and the authors constructed the evaluating indicator system by AHP. The system reflected the characteristics of interaction between urban and rural areas in all aspects, which can be used in practice. By this system, the comprehensive evaluation indicator correlative-degree was used to evaluate the development level of urban-rural interaction in 31 provinces (municipalities) of China in 2000. The result of evaluation revealed the real condition of the factor's transfer between urban and rural system, and showed development level of interaction between them. The method of correlative-degree of urban-rural interaction was a valuable attempt in quantitative research of urban-rural interaction.