*3.3. The Gap between Urban and Rural Development Has Tended to Narrow to Some Extent in Recent Years*

In 2017, the per capita GDP of China reached CNY 59,660, and the national urbanization rate reached 58.52%, while the urban–rural income gap reached 2.71 times and was higher than the level at the beginning of reform and opening up [79]. However, in recent years, the gap between urban and rural development has been narrowing [80,81], especially in the past decade; the ratio of the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents decreased from 3.14 in 2007 to 2.71 in 2017. The new era is a key historic period for the transformation of the social principal contradictions, which are the key issues to be faced

and solved in the new era of China [82]. The unbalanced and inadequate development in the new era is reflected in many aspects, but it is mainly reflected in the unbalanced development of urban and rural areas, and the biggest deficiency is the inadequate development of rural areas [83]. The multiples of the urban–rural income gap in China have been in the range of 2–3 for a long time, while those in most countries are below 1.5 [84]. In the new era, "urban and rural China" must change from one-way urbanization to interactive development between urban and rural areas [85–87]. To promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas, we should not only promote the development of rural society and the rural economy, but also strengthen urban development [88]. The continuous development of urbanization and urban innovation are important driving forces for the continuous development of rural revitalization. It is no accident that new-type urbanization and a rural revitalization strategy are being put forward in succession. The coupling of these two strategies is the key for solving the imbalance of urban and rural development in the new era.

## **4. The Prospect of the Integration of New-Type Urbanization and Rural Revitalization**

*4.1. Prediction of the Trend of New-Type Urbanization and Rural Revitalization in the New Era* There is often a misunderstanding that urbanization is urban development. In fact, urbanization is a regional process including urban and rural areas and a regional spatial change process in which the labor force, population, land and other elements in rural areas transfer or change to urban areas [89], and it is not a simple urban development problem. There is no practical significance to simply saying that the urbanization level of any urban built-up area is 100%. Therefore, urban–rural relations are essentially one of the important elements of urbanization. New-type urbanization requires the integrated development of urban and rural areas [6,8]. Whether the relations between urban and rural areas are isolated or interactive is related to the long-term development of the country and region. The proposal of the Rural Revitalization Strategy is the best interpretation of the changes in the principal contradictions in the new era. It is a reflection on the past urban bias and rural decline in the process of urbanization and a strategy for dealing with them [1]. It is necessary to promote a collaborative approach involving the government and residents [90], establish an integrated land-use policy framework, formulate and implement effective land-use policies, regulate the process of the conversion of farmland to nonagricultural use, and improve the efficiency of land allocation for urban and rural construction to realize the coordination of land use with the stage of economic development [1,4,91–94]. The weakness of rural development in the process of urbanization should be seized to promote rural revitalization and the high-quality development of new-type urbanization with urban–rural integration [6]. The main trends of new-type urbanization and rural revitalization in the future are predicted to be as follows:

A transition from urban-biased urbanization with the one-way flow of rural–urban to new-type urbanization with a two-way interaction of urban and rural. The "push–pull model" has generally been used to describe the process of rural–urban in the past—that is, the pushing force of rural areas and the pulling force of urban areas, which together lead to a large-scale population migration from rural to urban areas—and it was generally considered as a one-way flow of population from rural to urban areas. With the integration and development of new-type urbanization and rural revitalization, there should be a two-way positive interaction between urban and rural areas, with various resources and elements flowing freely between urban and rural areas.

Urban–rural integration is not only an important trend of the middle–last period of urbanization in China, but also the inherent demand of Chinese traditional culture and the inevitable demand of socialist modernization. The period from 2020 to 2035 is the key period for China to basically realize socialist modernization in, and the gaps between urban and rural areas are one important index of it.

The absolute gap between urban and rural will still exist for a period in the future, but the relative gap between urban and rural is expected to slow-down in growth in

China. Recently, China has made historic achievements in targeted poverty alleviation. China manages to achieve the goal of getting rid of poverty and building an overall well-off society by 2020. It can be expected that with the integrated development of new-type urbanization and a rural revitalization strategy, the gap in basic public services and living standards between urban and rural will continue to narrow.

The urban–rural gap between the east and the west of the "Hu Line" will remain at a high level, but the relative gaps between urban and rural in the east and the west will be narrowed, respectively. It is predicted that the stability of the "Hu Line" will continue to exist, and the distribution pattern of the large populations and the difference in economic development levels in China will not be fundamentally changed in the short term [95]. However, the relative gap in social development and basic public service levels in urban and rural areas between the east and the west of the "Hu Line" will be narrowed [96].

Strengthening the coordinated governance of urban and rural areas is an internal requirement of the integrated development of new-type urbanization and rural revitalization, which is also the key to achieving the integrated development and implementation of these two strategies. Coordinated urban–rural governance mainly includes the free flow of various resources and elements of urban–rural development; the linkage of urban and rural economic industries; the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries; the integration of urban–rural spatial planning and infrastructure layout [1]; the organic integration of urban and rural development communities; and the renewal of urban and rural communities, with local characteristics as the core.
