Impact of rural gentrification from the perspective of population-land-industry integration

Rural gentrification has been a common phenomenon in most metropolis peripheral rural areas against the rapid urbanization in China. The impact of rural gentrification is also of great significance for rural revitalization. In this study, Shannon Entropy Values and comprehensive index of land use were calculated using four phases of high-resolution remote sensing images in the year 2004, 2010, 2015, and 2021. Taking the Xiaobao Village in Beijing China as a case study, the data was collected from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The impact of rural gentrification on the rural areas in the metropolitan periphery was explored from the perspective of population-land-industry integration.The results were as follows. 1) There were three influences of rural gentrification on the study area, including economic, spatial, and social restructuring. In the economic restructuring, the agriculture and traditional industry were gradually replaced by the service sectors. Specifically, the cultural and creative industries were dominant ones during this time, while the education and training, commerce, and catering industries were important complements. The housing rent, land revenue, and employment in the service sectors replaced the traditional means of livelihood and channeled new sources of income. Meantime, three income ranges emerged to widen the income gap between villagers. In the spatial restructuring, the area percentage of land for the cultural and creative industry raised from 10.89% in 2010 to 29.61% in 2021, whereas, the area percentage of industrial land dropped from 41.11% to 19.30% in the same period. The residential land was shifted into the mixed land with the integrated functions of production and living, as the cultivated land and industrial land were transformed into the service industry land. The rural settlement environment was considerably improved, particularly with the increase and expansion of green land. In the social restructuring, there was a complex social network with the old and new gentrifiers, as the first large group and villagers as the second. Different groups were linked by three types of ties, including blood ties, lease, and service relationships. The new gentrifiers with the higher economic status replaced the old one, rather than villagers reported in other studies. As such, a new cultural space formed with the urban and art culture. 2) Four stages were divided for the rural gentrification in the study area, ranging from spontaneous (1990-2003), government-organized (2004-2010), and market-driven (2011-2014) to transformation and adjustment stage (since 2015). There was a profound impact on the social and economic development and spatial evolution of the study area. Furthermore, the population-land-industry relationship in Xiaobao Village was transformed from the state of “simple and homogeneous factors loosely connected”, “multiple and differentiated factors loosely linked”, and “multiple and divided factors strongly integrated” to “complexly mixed factors strongly coupled”. Consequently, the village was shifted from the traditional homogeneous space featured by the functions of living and production, rural differentiated space characterized by the functions of traditional industrial production, half rural and half urban space marked by functions of a new type of industrial production, to the new type rural space featured by the mixed functions of living, production, and consumption in different stages of rural gentrification. This finding can provide some implications for rural gentrification with Chinese characteristics under the background of rapid urbanization. A scientific reference can also be offered to the rural revitalization in the peripheral areas of the metropolis.