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Article

Evolution Process and Characteristics of Multifactor Flows in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Licheng Village in Hebei, China

by
Zhi Li
1,2,* and
Jinsong Liu
1,2,*
1
School of Geographical Sciences, Hebei Normal University, No. 20 Road East, 2nd Ring South, Shijiazhuang 050024, China
2
Hebei Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Ecological Construction, No. 20 Road East, 2nd Ring South, Shijiazhuang 050024, China
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3225; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043225
Submission received: 21 December 2022 / Revised: 6 February 2023 / Accepted: 8 February 2023 / Published: 10 February 2023
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Urban and Rural Development)
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Abstract

:
This paper, taking a typical agricultural village in China as an example, explored the evolution process and characteristics of rural population flows, capital flows and information flows since the reform and opening up in 1978, using a social survey and spatial analysis. The daily mobility of the rural population constantly increased around the township and central village. The volume of rural capital flows was increased. The income of residents mainly came from the township and central village, and consumption was concentrated in the county, township, central village and online network. Rural information flows developed significantly, showing typical translocality. Additionally, rural production space and living space were constantly restructured, and physical space and virtual space intertwined, forming new features of urban and rural spatial–coordinated development and a hybridity of rural space. In conclusion, affected by the dominant economic form, the evolution process of rural population flows, capital flows and information flows had obvious stage characteristics, and there were guidance, promotion and competition relationships among the three factor flows. Daily mobility was a more objective representation of the rural evolution process. Additionally, the study proposed the theory and spatio-temporal model of rural multifactor flows.

1. Introduction

1.1. Literature Review

Rural revitalization is one of the main research fields of rural geography, both at home and abroad [1]. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the study of rural development in Western countries mainly experienced three stages: productive countryside, postproductive countryside and multifunctional countryside, thus forming several rural transformation theories [2,3,4,5,6]. These studies were mainly based on functional perspective, and the countryside was regarded as a static and fixed entity [7,8]. Since the 1990s, with the rapid development of globalization and informatization, the flowing of large numbers of physical and virtual factors around the world had significantly increased. Mobility became an important topic in geography and sociology, thus forming a new research paradigm that emphasized the dynamic study of factor flows [9,10,11].
With the rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the 1990s, Castells proposed the theory of the “space of flows”, based on the synchronic flowing characteristics of virtual information [11]. It referred to the physical organization of social practices that shared time and operated through flowing [11]. From the perspective of geography, the concept of the space of flows was a series of flows guided by information flows, and the spatial carrier formed through the operation of various flows. Its application scenario has been extended from virtual factor flows to physical factor flows, which promote the research of regional factor flows [7,12,13]. Since the 21st century, with the rapid extension of modern transportation, information infrastructure, digital economy and high-quality public services to grassroot villages, the population flows, capital flows, information flows and traffic flows in rural areas have greatly increased. The rapid or simultaneous flowing of these factors has made rural, social and economic operations have greater location flexibility, and enhanced the breadth and depth of the remote coupling of man–land relationships in rural areas. As a result, the study of rural development has translated from static functionalization to dynamic translocality, and the theoretical basis has changed from the “space of places” with location as the core attribute to the “space of flows” with interaction [7,14,15,16,17].
From the perspective of the space of flows, rural areas were regarded as the intersection of multifactor flows, or the collection of interaction processes, and their characteristics were determined by the interaction of fixity and mobility [7,18]. Rural factor flows became a key issue in exploring the rural evolution mechanism and understanding the rural development future; the spatio-temporal analysis of factor flows became the research focus of rural geography [19,20,21]. At present, the research objects of rural factor flows mainly include population flows [22,23,24], traffic flows [25,26], tourism flows [27,28] and information flows [29]; research content includes the theoretical model, spatio-temporal process, evolution patterns, influencing mechanism, planning and governance; research methods include gravity model, field intensity model, potential model, fracture point analysis and qualitative research [30,31,32,33,34]. Since the 21st century, big data and data science have provided geographers with relational data that can directly measure traffic flows, information flows, population flows and knowledge flows, with new methods such as complex network analysis [35,36], big data model [37], graph theory [38] and flow map [39], which have been developed to promote the dynamic quantitative study of rural multifactor flows.
Rural population flows, capital flows and information flows, as important signs of rural transformation and development, have become the main research subjects of rural factor flows. However, traditional studies focused on the city or county scale, where data were more abundant and easily accessible; however, the analysis of rural factor flows at micro scale was insufficient, and the study mainly focused on single-factor flow [40,41]. Additionally, current research on rural population flows mainly focused on one-way, long-distance and permanent migration, so that analysis on the daily flowing of rural population was insufficient [22]. Meanwhile, research methods of rural capital flows and information flows were mainly static statistical analysis, or qualitative research, instead of the dynamic analysis of fine-grained data [42,43]. In addition, there was a close interaction between multifactor flows; however, revealing the operating relations and mechanism among multifactor flows in rural areas was inadequate.

1.2. Rural Development Background in China

China is a developing country, with a large population and less cultivated land per capita. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, industrialization, urbanization and informatization developed rapidly, and many agricultural villages transformed into industrial villages, tourism villages, or historical and cultural protection villages [44,45,46]. More than 50 percent of the countryside is still comprised of agricultural villages, which are the main sources of food production, and are living places for more than 500 million people in China. Although these agricultural villages have retained the agricultural production landscape, profound changes have taken place in the aspects of factor flows, spatial organization and urban–rural relations. That is, they are new communities with significant mobility and hybridity, rather than relatively closed and static communities [44]. The 14th Five-Year Plan clearly put forward that the state would fully implement the rural revitalization strategy, encourage more factors to flow to rural areas and would comprehensively improve the efficiency of rural operation.
Therefore, analyzing the evolution process and characteristics of rural multifactor flows has become an urgent scientific problem for rural geographers to solve. However, the current case studies on rural factor flows are concentrated in villages with significant industrial transformation, such as industrial villages, Taobao villages and characteristic villages. Therefore, studies on the tempo-spatial changes of factor flows in agricultural villages are obviously insufficient, which was difficult to meet with the theoretical and practical needs of rural revitalization in the new era.
In conclusion, taking a typical agricultural village in the Hebei Province of China as an example, this article analyzed and revealed the evolution process of rural multifactor flows (population flows, capital flows and information flows), based on the theory of the “space of flows”, and the characteristics of spatial reconstruction. The contributions of this paper were as follows: First, this study chose the most common agricultural village as the research object, which was rarely seen in previous studies. Second, the study took the daily flowing as research perspective, which was different from the traditional perspective of annual flowing. Third, the paper first proposed the theory and spatio-temporal model of rural multifactor flows.

2. Study Area and Research Method

2.1. Study Area

The rapid development and transformation of rural areas began in 1978 when the reform and opening up policy was implemented. Rural areas were the first to implement land system reform and create the household contract responsibility system. Households became the basic units of agricultural production and independent business accounting, which greatly improved the enthusiasm of households for production initiative and autonomy. The reform of the urban–rural dual household registration system promoted the free flowing of rural population, strengthened the connection between urban and rural factors, then promoted the development of rural industrialization and urbanization. Since the 21st century, rural development has entered the informationization stage. In short, agricultural rural areas have mainly experienced the development stages of agricultural production, industrialization, urbanization and informationization [1,44,45,47].
Licheng village, located in Jiajiakou town, Ningjin county, Hebei Province, is a typical agricultural–rural settlement. Hebei Province is an important grain-producing region. Because of rural settlements overloaded in number and density, the per cultivated area is less than 0.12 hm2, leading to a prominent contradiction between man and land, and the insufficiency of agricultural development in supporting rural revitalization. Ningjin county is an important area of grain and cotton production in Southern Hebei Province; the industrial and commercial economy is relatively developed and the GDP ranks as the forefront of the province. Jiajakou town is a well-known wire and cable production and trade base, and is also one of the economically developed industrial towns in China. The overall rural development level ranks first in the county, which is rated as a “rural revitalization demonstration area”.
At the end of 2020, Licheng village had a total of 186 registered households with a population of 621, including 131 persons aged 0–14 years, 309 persons aged 15–59 years, and 100 persons aged over 60 years. There are 146 permanent households with a population of 419, including 102 persons aged 0–14 years, 224 persons aged 15–59 years, and 93 persons aged over 60 years. The land of Licheng village is mainly separated into arable land, residential land, industrial land and public service facilities land, of which the areas are 49.47 hm2, 7.13 hm2, 2.54 hm2 and 0.18 hm2, respectively. This village is adjacent to Jiajiakou township in the east, and only 1 km from the national Highway 339 in the north, and about 13 km from the center of the county (Figure 1). The village, located in a temperate monsoon climate area, has flat terrain and fertile soil. Due to the perfect water conservancy facilities, natural disasters have less impact on the countryside. The economic form of the village is still dominated by agricultural production, and the population continues to flow out; however, it has not decayed or disappeared like other agricultural villages. Through efficient flowing and the optimal allocation of rural factors, the village not only guarantees the task of food production, but also realizes sustainable economic and social development. The per capita disposable income of villagers has exceeded CYN 40,000, and the gap between urban and rural in the quality of life has narrowed significantly. In short, it is representative and exemplary in traditional agricultural areas of China.

2.2. Data and Methods

The data in this study involved four parts: demographics, social survey data, rural space and town statistics. (1) The demographic data, household registration forms and floating people registration forms in Licheng village, from 1995 to 2020, were collected from Jiajiakou town government. Then, the number of registered and permanent residents, the occupational composition of labor force and the employment locations of Licheng village from 1978 to 2020 were verified through interviews with key subjects, such as the village party secretary, village accountant, retired teachers and village committee members. (2) The sample size of the survey was calculated according to the stratified sampling method and was composed of 55% of all households in the village, including 15 full farming households, 40 part-time farming households and 25 nonfarming households. A detailed questionnaire containing 60 items was designed and the items were classified into four categories, including: the type and area of agricultural cultivation; the flowing of rural population; the flowing of households’ income and consumption; and the flowing of information. A total of 200 questionnaires were issued in the participatory survey and 193 were collected, among which 191 were valid. Then, the data on capital flows and the information flows of rural residents were collected by questionnaires and semistructured interviews, including the type, volume and frequency of rural factor flows. (3) Spatial maps of the construction land of Licheng village were acquired from Google Earth in 1978, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2020 (taken in December of each year), and data on the alteration of land utilization in 2020 were obtained from the local government. The statistical data of land contract–management from 1995 to 2020 were collected from Jiajiakou town government. Then, combined with the social survey results, land-use maps were created through data processing and integrating by the ArcGIS tool. (4) The economic statistical data referred to the “Basic situation of social economy of Jiajiakou town (2010–2020)” and “Private economic enterprises by sector of Jiajiakou town (2010–2020)” and were provided by Jiajiakou town government.
This paper respectively counted and analyzed the flowing direction, the volume and frequency of rural population flows, capital flows and information flows during 1978–2020, then summarized their operating and evolution characteristics by qualitative methods. The spatial statistical tool in the ArcGIS software was used to discuss the reconstructing process of rural production space (agricultural and industrial land) and living space (residential and public land) during 1978–2020, and spatial visualization was carried out. Combined with field investigation, in-depth interview and mathematical statistics, the paper constructed the spatio-temporal model of rural multifactor flows. Based on the actor network method, the reconstruction strategy and policy suggestions of rural multifactor flow were put forward from the perspective of multi-actors in rural areas.

2.3. Theoretical Framework

At present, the space of flows and rural–urban interaction are the basic theories of research on rural factor flows [11,15,48]. Based on these two theories, and combined with the operating characteristics of rural multifactor flows, this paper built a theoretical framework (Figure 2).
From the perspective of the space of flows, rural development is a process in which rural multifactor flows interact and operate dynamically, depending on relevant material organization (infrastructure, nodes and hubs). Thereinto, the multifactor flows closely intertwine and interact with each other, and there are various relations between them, such as mutual promotion, competition and exclusion. From the perspective of rural–urban interaction, rural and urban areas are the basic spatial units, their factors and resources depend on each other and act closely, forming a symbiotic development relationship, which shows that rural development is also a process of interaction between rural and urban settlements. From the perspective of geography, multifactor flows are constantly running and interacting inside the rural areas and between urban and rural settlements, forming a dynamic and open rural development network of factor flows. Therefore, multifactor flows and rural–urban relations are both important representations and key research points of rural development and evolution.
In this paper, the theory of rural multifactor flows were summarized and developed by considering multifactor flows and rural–urban relations. In other words, as a joint result of rural multifactor flowing and rural–urban interaction, the rural settlements continued to develop and evolve. Under the background of mobility, it became the theoretical basis for the study of rural development and evolution. In addition, classification research was needed due to the different operating mechanisms of multifactor flows. In this paper, factor flows were innovatively divided into physical flows (population flows, traffic flows and capital flows) and virtual flows (information flows and knowledge flows). Accordingly, the space of flows could also be divided into two parts: the space of physical flows and the space of virtual flows. At the same time, due to different relations between urban and rural settlements, it was necessary to classify villages into different types. This paper focused on an agricultural village near an urban settlement.

2.4. Analytical Framework

By analyzing the research process and the current situation of rural development in China, this paper pointed out that the evolution of agricultural–rural multifactor flows was an important topic of rural geography research in the information age, and put forward theoretical and analytical frameworks (Figure 3). Then, data collection and processing were carried out, and specific research methods were proposed. Then, we analyzed and revealed the evolution characteristics of rural population flows, capital flows and information flows, together with the process of rural spatial reconstruction from 1978 to 2020. On this basis, the daily mobility, translocality and spatio-temporal models of rural multifactor flows were discussed. Finally, conclusions were summarized.

3. Results

3.1. Evolution Process and Characteristics of Rural Population Flows

  • Rural migrants mainly flowed into urban areas, and the numbers were increasing.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, because of the low level of industrialization, insufficient urban jobs and resources, and overpopulation, a strict urban–rural dual population management system was implemented in China, which restricted the migration of rural populations. Rural populations migrated to cities only by going to school and joining the army, implying poor population mobility. For example, the net outflow population of Licheng village in 1978 and 1985 was only one and four persons, respectively. Since the 1990s, population management policies gradually improved, which created the right conditions for rural emigration. At the same time, with the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, many nonagricultural jobs were created in urban areas, and the income of nonfarm workers was significantly higher than that of farmers. In order to solve the problem of food and clothing, or improve the quality of life, the surplus labor force gradually flowed to urban areas. From 1995 to 2020, the net outflow population of Licheng village increased to 202 persons, among whom 159 flowed into cities and towns (Table 1), indicating that the number of permanent migrants in rural areas increased significantly, and mainly flowed into urban areas.
2.
Rural permanent population flowed mainly to the administrative township and economic centralvillage, with daily mobility increasing continuously.
In 1978, the production and living activities of Licheng villagers mainly focused on agricultural planting, and the scope of commodity trading and social communication was mainly within the town, which resulted in the poor daily mobility of the rural population. With rural industrialization and urbanization developing rapidly since the 1990s, a large number of industrial enterprises had been established in Jiajiakou village and Huangerying village. Many stable or temporary jobs had been created, which attracted a large surplus agricultural labor force, resulting in a significant increase in the daily mobility of the rural population (Table 2). Since the 21st century, in order to cope with the loss of the rural population and to promote the optimal allocation of regional resources, Ningjin county started to withdraw and merge rural primary schools, medical stations and public services, according to the principle of proximity, which further promoted the daily flowing of population between villages and towns. For example, the primary school and kindergarten of Licheng village were merged into Jiajiakou school, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Additionally, medical workstations stopped functioning in 2011, leading to the fact that the living and production requirements of residents were highly dependent on Jiajiakou village or Huangerying village. Therefore, Jiajiakou and Huangerying villages not only provided sufficient nonagricultural jobs, but also became an important supply base for rural commodities and public services; they became the main work and life service centers for Licheng village residents. By 2020, about 36% of the nonagricultural employment population in Licheng village worked in Jiajiakou and Huangerying villages by daily commute.
At the same time, the field survey showed that by the end of 2020, the average price of residential buildings in Jiajiakou and Huangerying villages was CNY 3000/m2, which was much higher than that of Licheng village (CNY 1600/m2). Rural residents grew vegetables and fruit in their yards, which saved on living costs. It took between 15 and 20 min by bike to travel from Licheng village to Jiajiakou village or Huangerying village, indicating a low commuting cost. The kinship circle and social circle of villagers were mainly within the village, and especially the older villagers had obvious topophilia. As a result, most rural residents still chose to live in Licheng village and commute to work outside, thus increasing the daily mobility of rural permanent residents.

3.2. Evolution Process and Characteristics of Rural Capital Flows

(1)
Total income and the proportion of nonagricultural income of rural residents was increasing, which was mainly from the township and central village.
In 1978, the main income of residents came from the sale of agricultural products, and the average annual income was less than CNY 1000. Rural residents helped each other gratuitously in production and living, with few trading activities, resulting in poor capital flowing. With the rapid development of agricultural mechanization in the mid-1980s, investment in agricultural science and technology increased significantly. Agricultural mechanized production developed rapidly, leading to an increase in agricultural output and a significant surplus of agricultural labor force. A small number of farmers went out for work in order to increase income and improve their lives, leading to a growth in translocal capital flowing. With the rapid development of rural industrialization since the 1990s, dozens of wire and cable processing plants were built in Jiajiakou township and central villages. This created a large number of nonagricultural jobs and income for the residents in Licheng village, so as to increase the scale and frequency of rural capital flows. For example, the per capita disposable income of villagers increased from less than CNY 3000 to CNY 48,000, from 1995 to 2020. The proportion of nonagricultural income for rural residents was increasing. In 1995, 2005 and 2020, rural residents who relied on nonagricultural income as a main livelihood source accounted for 17.68%, 36.57% and 50.66%, respectively (Table 3). These results indicated that the income of rural residents increased significantly, and the source of income shifted from agricultural cultivation inside the village to nonagricultural production activities in the township or central village.
(2)
The consumption capital flows were increasing, and the consumption places were mainly concentrated in the township, central village, county and online network.
The residents of Licheng village were mainly engaged in agricultural activities from 1978 to 1985, with a high self-sufficiency rate of production and living materials, resulting in less consumption capital flowing. After the 1980s, the rural nonagricultural economy developed rapidly and the social division of labor was gradually refined. Rural residents mainly met their production and living needs through market transactions, leading to the total amount of consumption capital increasing rapidly, as well as the frequency of capital flowing. Farmers needed to buy seeds, fertilizers and pesticides for agricultural production, and to hire people and machinery to plant and harvest crops. In addition, monetary expenditure on education, medical care, housing construction, weddings and funerals, and interpersonal relations, were also increasing. Daily living consumption increased from CNY 305 per household in 1978 to CNY 20,390 per household in 2020, among which the consumption of food, clothing, communication and online shopping increased significantly [44]. The results indicated that the type and amount of daily necessities consumption were increasing, as well as the total amount of consumption capital flow.
The capital flows of daily living and large-item consumption of households in 2020 were obtained through questionnaire surveys. The results showed that the daily living consumption fund flowed mainly into four directions, including inside Licheng village (30%), Jiajiakou township (46%), Huangerying village (5%) and online consumption (19%). The large-item consumption fund flowed into the county (44%), central villages (23%), township (16%) and the online network (17%). In general, on the one hand, the consumption of rural residents was concentrated in the township, central village, county and online, and the proportion of online consumption increased significantly. On the other hand, there were obvious differences in flow direction between daily living and large-item consumption; that is, rural consumption capital flows were significantly affected by commodity types.

3.3. Evolution Process and Characteristics of Rural Information Flows

Rural information flows included physical information flows (letters and parcels) and virtual information flows (telephone, Internet, and mobile Internet). Through questionnaire surveys and interviews with villagers, the volume of information flows with different types in Licheng village during 1978–2020 were calculated (Table 4). In 1978, rural residents communicated with the outside world mainly through letters and parcels, and the volume and frequency of information flow was less. The reasons for this were that the level of rural economic and social development was low, and the villagers were relatively self-sufficient in production and life, resulting in less demand for external contact. Additionally, the means of communication were relatively less-developed. Since the 1980s, with the development of industrialization, some villagers began to go out for work, and rural industries continued to transform and develop, resulting in rural production and life more closely connecting with the outside world. By 1985, the number of letters increased significantly, indicating increasing rural information mobility. With the rapid development of rural industrialization and urbanization in the 1990s, the need for external communication in rural areas increased significantly, and the telephone, which carried more content and ran more efficiently, became popular in rural areas, which promoted the growth of rural information flows. In the early 21st century, the Internet in Licheng village began to develop, and mobile Internet developed rapidly after 2010, which reduced spatial distance constraints and made it more real-time and convenient to communicate with the outside world.
In conclusion, since 1978, the Internet was playing an increasingly important role in rural production and life. The scope and volume of rural information flows was markedly increased, showing significant translocal characteristics of rural development.

3.4. Rural Spatial Reconstruction in the Evolution of Multifactor Flows

The flowing of population, capital and information in rural areas has gradually accelerated since 1978, which promotes the continuous reconstruction and hybridity of rural space, including production space and living space, as well as physical space and virtual space.
(1)
The reconstruction of rural production space.
The reconstruction of rural production space means the changing process of agricultural production space and industrial production space. From 1978 to 1985, industrialization in Licheng village had not yet started, and the total area of agricultural land did not change. Rural households generally increased the proportion of cash crop (cotton) for more income (from 4.67 hm2 to 20 hm2), and reduced main grain planting (from 48.80 hm2 to 30.14 hm2), leading to changes in the structure of agricultural land. From 1995 to 2005, driven by the surrounding rural wire and cable enterprises, Licheng village built some wire and cable accessory processing plants due to the inflow of industrial capital and technologies, and the industrial land area increased to 1.36 hm2. At the same time, as a result of nonagricultural development and rural population outflow, villagers all chose to grow corn, wheat and other staple crops, with a high degree of mechanization, instead of cotton, peanuts and millet, which took a lot of time and labor. This indicated that agricultural space was transformed again [44]. Since the 21st century, the translocality of rural population flows, capital flows and information flows have become more significant, further promoting the reconstruction of rural production space. On the one hand, as rural industrial production lacked scale effect and environmental protection equipment, and had low technological content and competitiveness, some small factories have been eliminated. Others have been relocated to enterprise parks in towns or central villages, finally promoting the spatial reconstruction of rural industrial production. On the other hand, rural agricultural land was gradually concentrated in large grain-growers, was managed in tandem with agricultural land outside the village, and specialized and large-scale agricultural production was developed, which promoted the reconstruction of rural–agricultural production space.
(2)
The reconstruction of rural living space.
The reconstruction of rural living space refers to the changing process of living space and public service space. Since 1978, the income of Licheng village residents kept growing, and they constantly built new houses to improve their lives, which promoted the expansion of living space. Rural residential land increased from 2.24 hm2 in 1978 to 7.30 hm2 in 2020. In recent years, due to the improved living and traffic environment, most rural residents still chose to live inside Licheng village and work outside the village, so that rural houses were continuously constructed and maintained. The area of renovated houses accounts for 15.48% in the past 5 years (Figure 4). In the same period, rural public land in Licheng village decreased from 0.23 hm2 to 0.18 hm2, because industrialization and urbanization promoted the outflow of rural population and capital, and the transfer of public and commercial services to the central towns and villages. This led to the shrinkage of education, medical care and business functions of the villages and corresponding space [44]. Rural residents chose township and central villages as places for consumption and socializing, which further enhanced economic and social communication between villages and towns, and presented a new development feature of multiple functions and the spatial division of labor and cooperation between villages and towns.
In addition, rural–regional ICT facilities have developed rapidly since the 21st century. Increasing rural production, consumption and entertainment activities on the virtual network stimulated the development of postal organizations, express stations and their related spatial organizations, and finally promoted the formation and development of rural space of flows. In recent years, there was a close interaction between online virtual networks and offline physical networks in rural areas, which further promoted rural spatial hybridity.

4. Discussion

4.1. Daily Mobility of Rural Multifactor Flows

The results of this study made up for the deficiency of research on the daily mobility of rural population flows, and showed the characteristics of its movement around the administrative and economic center. In the study, no unfairness in the daily flowing of the rural population was found, perhaps as the distance between Licheng village and the working or living place was less than 20 min by bicycle. Another factor is that the difference between households with or without cars, in daily flowing, was not significant. In addition, rural population outflow was often regarded as a sign of rural decay. However, from the perspective of human–land–industry relations, the current rural area was still overpopulated, and population outflow could lead to the increase of per capita resources, providing more possibilities for rural transformation and development. Therefore, rural population mobility should be viewed from a systematic perspective.
Rural daily capital flows could veritably reflect the living conditions of rural residents, but could also represent the nature of rural development. This paper revealed the evolution process of rural daily capital flows from the two dimensions of inflow and outflow, and obtained some interesting results. The income of rural residents mainly came from industrial agglomeration villages. Further, the quantity and frequency of capital was constantly increasing, as well as the flow scope, which conformed to the objective rules of economic development. There was little difference in daily life consumption among rural residents, and the consumption gap mainly existed in education and medical care aspects (not listed in the results). Moreover, vulnerable groups had obvious traffic poverty in the long distance for commuting or leisure activities.
By analyzing the daily mobility of information flows, this paper supplemented the deficiency of research on physical flows in the information age. Rural scholars generally believed that the agglomeration of factor flows was an important representation of rural revitalization. Thereinto, the operation and aggregation of physical flows were closely related to regional infrastructure, scale and functional level. However, there was a large gap between rural and urban areas in the above aspects, leading to an urban–rural development gap and rural decay. Based on this fact, the path of rural revitalization was limited to the pursuit of scale and functional hierarchy. However, information flows gave birth to the digital economy, which was a brand-new economic form that was almost unaffected by spatial distance and scale. Rural areas would achieve sustainable development through virtual factor agglomeration. Therefore, the creation of information flows and the construction of digital villages became the key means of future rural revitalization.

4.2. The Translocality of Rural Multifactor Flows

The paper firstly used a large number of granular data to quantitatively analyze the evolution of rural multifactor flows and the spatial reconstruction process, revealing the translocality of agricultural countryside; that is, the symbiosis development of rural and urban. Traditionally, research on rural development was mainly based on static functional perspectives, such as the theories of productionism, consumerism and constructivism. Revitalization paths included transforming into industrial villages, specialized production villages, tourism villages or characteristic cultural villages. Much of the surplus agricultural countryside was considered marginal or decaying. In the guidance of this theory, the practice of rural planning focused on the remolding of rural functions and aimed to achieve the multiple goals of rural revitalization. Nevertheless, rural endowments had great differences and were small scale, so that not every village could realize multifunctional transformation. If a rural cluster was taken as the basic unit of rural planning, establishing an efficient factor flow network could not only achieve the rural pluralism goal, but could also take into account the demands of the country, local areas, villages and farmers. For example, the ordinary agricultural countryside in this paper has found another development path: through the efficient flowing of factors between rural and urban areas, rural–urban symbiosis–cluster development is basically realized. Although the village has only retained agricultural production and partial residential functions, the income and life quality of the villagers have been continuously improved, which can be regarded as the realization of rural revitalization from the perspective of humanism.

4.3. Spatio-Temporal Model of Rural Multifactor Flows

Chinese rural areas are vast and diverse, and operation and evolution characteristics vary from different rural factor flows, but they follow a general development rule [49,50,51]. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, rural areas have entered a period of rapid transformation and development. Almost all villages have experienced three stages, including: agricultural–dominant development, industrialization and urbanization, and informatization. The mobility of the rural population, capital, and information factors were increasing, deepening the rural–urban connection. In every stage, rural development has some common characteristics. For example, in the agricultural–dominated development stage, rural factor flows mainly run inside the village; in the industrialization stage, the population and capital accelerated to flow into the place which gathered production enterprise; and in the informatization stage, the flowing of virtual factors increased greatly. This indicated that the operation and evolution process of rural factor flows were significantly affected by leading economic form.
Therefore, through analyzing the evolution of population flows, capital flows and information flows in Licheng village, and their spatial reconstruction process during 1978–2020, this paper, combined with the law of rural transformation and development, summarized the general characteristics of the evolution of multifactor flows in agricultural–rural areas and proposed a spatio-temporal model. On the whole, the development of rural multifactor flows mainly included three stages: agricultural dominance, rural industrialization and rural informatization (Figure 5).
  • Agricultural–dominated development stage. Agricultural planting was the main economic form in rural areas; the production and living activities of rural residents were carried out within the village, which led to the weak mobility of rural multifactor flows. Part of the rural population has flowed out to the towns, but no population from outside flowed into the countryside. Capital flows between urban and rural areas were mainly through the trading of industrial and agricultural products. As the township was the center of the supply of public services and commodities for rural areas, as well as for administrative approval, this meant rural residents needed to enter the township in order to obtain these services. Therefore, the daily flowing of the rural population and capital ran around the township, and their running tracks were similar to some extent. At this stage, the rural information flows were less.
  • Rural industrialization stage. With the development of industrialization and urbanization, the production and living styles of rural residents turned to nonagriculturization, which led to the increasing mobility of rural factors. Due to the large gap between urban and rural development, the rural population obviously flowed unidirectionally to the city. The volume and frequency of capital flows between urban and rural areas increased significantly. In the meantime, rural industries have created a large number of nonagricultural jobs and wealth, and the mobility of the rural population and capital have further increased, which ran around the township and economic center. This fact indicated that the operation of population flows and capital flows had a mutual–promotion relationship, and there was competition and cooperation relationships between the economic center and life center. At this stage, the rural information flows increased slowly.
  • Rural informatization stage. The development of rural communication and modern transportation infrastructure, and the improvement of the rural living environment, decreased the amount of rural population migration to the outside and markedly enhanced the daily mobility of the rural population. Cities and e-commerce villages became the key nodes of rural information flows, and the cities with rich information resources were more attractive to rural information flow than settlements within the county, which indicated that the operation process of information flows had obvious translocality. With the development of the digital economy and virtual social intercourse, the production and living activities of rural residents gradually turned to virtual space, and the proportion of online consumption increased. As a result, the flowing of capital and information between urban and rural areas increased significantly, and information flows had a guiding effect on capital flows. There was a certain degree of decoupling between population flows and capital flows, since capital flows could run through virtual space.

4.4. Research Prospects

This paper, took a typical agricultural village as an example to reveal the evolution of rural population flows, capital flows and information flows, and its spatial reconstruction process. Against the background of increasing mobility, it is necessary to explore the operating force and the model of rural factor flows, evaluate the influence of rural multifactor flows, and innovate research methods.
First of all, the operation force and relations of multifactor flows in rural areas are very complicated, which need to be systematically analyzed. For example, flow motivation includes economy, politics, environment and culture. The operation process is affected by the interest game of government, farmers and business owners. The type, direction, speed, volume and route of factor flows are different [22]. As a result, it is challenging work to establish the operation model of rural multifactor flow, which is also the basic work of simulation and theoretical construction. Secondly, the influence of rural multifactor flows on rural development is dynamic and dialectical [52]. The flowing of rural factors promotes the complementation of urban and rural superior resources, driving the optimal allocation of commodity trade and public services, and thus improves the sustainable development capacity of rural areas. However, urban surplus capital, goods and public services flow into rural areas, which increases the rural inflation rate and commodity prices, and reduces public services for local people. Additionally, the quality of local public transport services declines due to the increased number of private cars. Rural local emotion is closely related to stability, and local attachment and community cohesion may be deconstructed by mobility. In addition, the research methods of rural multifactor flows need to be innovated. Traditional statistical and field survey methods have been unable to quantitatively reveal the complex operating relations of rural multifactor flows at regional scale, and to describe the rural factor flow map. Rural geographers should learn from the theories and methods of big data science, social science and urban geography, integrate big data and field survey data, and redesign the rural factor flow analysis framework and mathematical models. Moreover, the comparative study of different village types should be strengthened to enrich the research scenes of rural factor flows.

5. Conclusions

Focusing on the common agricultural village in China, this paper explored the evolution process and characteristics of multifactor flows in rural areas from 1978 to 2020, and revealed that the evolution process had a general rule. For rural population flows, with the development of industrialization and informatization, rural population continued to migrate to the cities, but the flow rate slowed down. The daily population flows ran around the regional economic center and administrative center. For rural capital flows, the volume gradually increased, and the source sites of income were mainly the adjacent central villages and township; however, more and more funds flowed into the county and the Internet space. For information flows, the volume and speed developed rapidly, and the flowing scope was expanding constantly, creating a new form of rural–economy and society. During the evolution process, the rural production space and living space were constantly restructured, forming a new feature of urban and rural spatial–coordinated development and spatial hybridity. On the whole, the spatio-temporal evolution process of rural multifactor flows was affected by the dominant economic form, including three stages: agricultural dominance, rural industrialization and rural informatization, and the translocality of flows was continuously enhanced.
In this paper, the theory of rural multifactor flows is summarized and developed by considering multifactor flows and rural–urban relations. This theory emphasizes dynamics and interactivity, gets rid of the limitations of theories based on fixed location (such as the central place theory), and is more in line with the reality of rural development under the background of mobility. Only from this theoretical perspective can we objectively and deeply reveal the rural evolution process and scientifically plan rural revitalization paths. Based on this, the study further proposed the assumption of taking rural clusters as a rural research and planning unit, which could promote the efficient operation of multifactor flows and realize the inclusive development and comprehensive revitalization of rural areas.
The policies should be optimized to provide a strong guarantee for rural revitalization in the future. For example, promoting the comprehensive reform of the rural land system, the household registration system and the financial system, and establishing a policy system with integrated and inclusive governance for urban and rural areas, contribute to promote the fair flowing of urban and rural factors. In grassroot governance, local governments should take rural clusters as the basic units, exert the agglomeration advantage of factor flows, avoid vicious competition among villages and promote rural collaborative development. Grassroot organizations will be empowered to promote the transfer of farmland and agricultural operations on an appropriate scale, the orderly withdrawal of idle homesteads, and to accelerate the flowing of factors within the county. It is necessary to strengthen the training of villagers’ informationization skills, make full use of and create information flow resources [44,49,53] and encourage households to specialize and digitalize production. In sum, with the joint participation of the state, local governments, grassroot organizations and villagers, a multilevel and multi-agent collaborative governance pattern should be formed to ensure the efficient operating of rural multifactor flows.

Author Contributions

Z.L.: data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, writing—original draft; J.L.: writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42201197), the Hebei Provincial Natural Science Foundation (D2020205001) and the Science Foundation of Hebei Normal University (L2019B34).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Location of Licheng village in China.
Figure 1. Location of Licheng village in China.
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Figure 2. Theoretical framework of rural multifactor flows.
Figure 2. Theoretical framework of rural multifactor flows.
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Figure 3. The overall analytical framework.
Figure 3. The overall analytical framework.
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Figure 4. The spatial pattern of Licheng village in 2020.
Figure 4. The spatial pattern of Licheng village in 2020.
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Figure 5. The spatio-temporal model of multifactor flows in rural areas (the width of the arrows is proportional to the intensity of the flows).
Figure 5. The spatio-temporal model of multifactor flows in rural areas (the width of the arrows is proportional to the intensity of the flows).
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Table
Table 1. The population flows in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020 (per person).
Table 1. The population flows in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020 (per person).
Population Flows19781985199520052020
Registered population302369468517621
Permanent population301365460470419
Net outflow14847202
Outflow to the city14638117
Outflow to the town001442
Outflow to the central village000226
Outflow to other places001317
Table
Table 2. The daily flow modes of the permanent population in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020 (per person).
Table 2. The daily flow modes of the permanent population in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020 (per person).
Flow Modes19781985199520052020
Flowing inside the village29228125912483
Flowing between village and town (consumption)229126165146
Flowing between village and town (commuting)63155148178
Others224203312
Total permanent population302365460470419
Table
Table 3. Income sources of adults in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020 (per person).
Table 3. Income sources of adults in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020 (per person).
Mainly Income Sources19781985199520052020
Agricultural income (from Licheng village)1751441679434
Agricultural and nonagricultural income (from Licheng village and town)024103135146
Nonagricultural income (from the town)592191178
Other income *1322374116
Total193199328361304
*, Other income includes government subsidies and social assistance.
Table
Table 4. Types and volume of information flows in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020.
Table 4. Types and volume of information flows in Licheng village from 1978 to 2020.
Types of Information FlowsVolume of Information Flows
19781985199520052020
Letter+++++++
Parcel++++++++
Telephone--+++++++
Internet---+++++
Mobile Internet----+++
Note: “-” indicates none, “+” indicates small quantity, “++” indicates moderate quantity, “+++” indicates large quantity.
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Li, Z.; Liu, J. Evolution Process and Characteristics of Multifactor Flows in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Licheng Village in Hebei, China. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3225. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043225

AMA Style

Li Z, Liu J. Evolution Process and Characteristics of Multifactor Flows in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Licheng Village in Hebei, China. Sustainability. 2023; 15(4):3225. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043225

Chicago/Turabian Style

Li, Zhi, and Jinsong Liu. 2023. "Evolution Process and Characteristics of Multifactor Flows in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Licheng Village in Hebei, China" Sustainability 15, no. 4: 3225. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043225

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