Construction of urban-rural interaction evaluation model and its application in Shandong Province

Urban-rural development has always been illustrated as the interaction relationship, represented by the free flow of population, commodities, capital and information between urban and rural areas, which, in some sense, guarantee the effective and efficient uses of resources in urban and rural areas. The urban-rural interaction should not be understood as a process of urbanization for rural areas or that of counter-urbanization for metropolis, rather, it is as a process of joint development, represented by the exchange of materials and energy, for the urban and rural areas. The joint development of urban and rural areas depends on the increase of capital investment for infrastructures mainly covering transportation, telecommunication, education, medical facilities and welfare. Since the industrial reformation, convenient telecommunication, transportation has directly accelerated the intercommunications; indirectly boosted the flow of commodities between urban and rural areas, which has significantly affected the urban-rural interaction. Improved education, medical facilities and society welfare infrastructure serving as the foundation for the joint development of urban and rural areas, together with the equal rights and change for villagers or citizens in education and society welfares, guarantees the urban-rural interaction and integration. This paper gives out a comparatively precise definition of urban-rural interaction. Based on the anterior models,the authors construct a new urban-rural interaction model. To be validated, the model is applied in Shandong province, and its result is acceptable. It was made clear that the concerted development of urban and rural areas is a process of regional social-economic development and it's the re-organization of regional urban and rural factors. Essentially speaking, urban-rural interaction is the degree of urban-rural inter-relationship. The construction of urban-rural interaction model will be helpful for the spatial description of urban and rural relationship, the formulation of regional plan and the development of regional urbanization.