According to the strategic direction of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization, the spatial reconstruction of rural settlement system is the spatial organization foundation of future urban-rural integration development. This paper focused on the hierarchical scale and spatial organization characteristics of the rural settlement system. It comprehensively revealed the evolution process and regional characteristics of rural settlement systems of 111 administrative units in Guangdong province from 1990 to 2020, and discussed their evolutionary mechanism and spatial optimizing and reorganizing regional modes. The results show that: (1) There were significant regional differences in the hierarchical scale distribution of the rural settlement system in Guangdong. The patches of rural settlements show the characteristics of concentric aggregation and distribution centered on the geometric barycenter of each administrative unit. The spatial distribution pattern of the rank cumulative size coefficients of rural settlement system was "high in the southwest, but low in the northeast" and "high in coastal areas, and low in the inland". The decreasing region of the rank cumulative size coefficient was concentrated on the east bank of the Pearl River Estuary and coastal areas of eastern Guangdong, while the increasing region was mainly distributed on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary. (2) The influencing factors such as natural background, economic development, urbanization development, transportation and location, institutions and policies jointly drove the development and evolution of the rural settlement system. Rural settlement system of urban areas is small in scale in the mature stage of urbanization, which will gradually die out and integrate into the city. Driven by urbanization, industrialization and policies, rural settlement system of suburban areas has experienced survival of the fittest and maintains a stable scale, but the mixed distribution of urban and rural land makes the spatial organization of rural settlements increasingly loose. Driven by the continuous outflow of production factors, exurb rural settlements appear to be "hollowing out". The villagers returning to build new houses and the lack of homestead exit mechanism have led to a continuous and stable growth in rural settlement scale, and their spatial distribution is characterized by more peripheral diffusion. Rural settlement system with poor location in mountainous areas develops slowly under the support of policies, and the aggregation characteristic along the transportation line is significant. (3) Facing the integrated development of urban and rural spaces, four models of spatial optimization and reorganization of rural settlement system are proposed: urban-rural integration development, dual-core-driven development, central place hierarchical system development, and pan-center chain-connecting cluster development.

Reverse logistics of domestic waste is a critical link in the domestic waste treatment within villages and towns. Hence, revealing the formation mechanism of reverse logistics models and establishing a cost-effective reverse logistics system for domestic waste treatment plays a pivotal role in the stabilization of the ecological security and improvement of the living environment of urban residents, farmers, and herdsmen in the farming-pastoral ecotone. This study analyzed the disequilibrium of the level of waste treatment at multiple scales based on a multi-source heterogeneous dataset of 1499 village settlements, taking Haidong city as an example. Further, the determinants of the spatial variation of domestic waste reverse logistics models were clarified by using a multinomial logistic regression model. Lastly, the spatial optimization of the reverse logistics model was proposed based on the evaluation of the spatial accessibility of waste treatment facilities by the improved potential model. The results show that the level of domestic waste generation was relatively low in Haidong, with the distribution of domestic waste characterized by an overall pattern of "locally clustered, globally dispersed". The level of waste treatment was unable to meet the demand of residents, with a pattern of decrease from the urban areas of the valley of the Huangshui River to the surrounding farmers' settlements and remote herdsmen settlements. In addition, the alpine environment and the fragmentation of village settlements of the farming-pastoral ecotone were the underlying reasons that hindered the implementation of the centralized logistics model. Moreover, village settlements with a small resident population and poor socio-economic development usually belonged to disadvantaged regions for the implementation of the centralized logistics model. Besides, the increase in the number of grass-roots cadres and the decrease in the average age contributed to implementing the decentralized logistics model. At last, the overall spatial accessibility of waste treatment facilities in rural areas of Haidong was primarily low. It is recommended to adopt a comprehensive optimization strategy that combines decentralized and centralized logistics models and implement three optimization models: centralized logistics in the city, diffusional logistics in the townships, and decentralized logistics in the farming and pastoral areas. Aiming at minimizing logistics costs and eliminating environmental stress in waste treatment, the main policy implications according to the characteristics of logistics nodes are as follows. Greater efforts are needed to enhance the function of coordinating hardware and software facilities for waste transportation in the county, promote effective collaboration in waste treatment at the town level, strengthen the village-level functions of source separation and local elimination of waste, and ultimately establish a reverse logistics system of domestic waste that focuses on waste reduction, resource utilization, and harmless treatment.

Improving rural sustainable development capability from the perspective of perceived resilience is crucial to comprehensively promote rural revitalization. Based on the theoretical connotation of rural perceived resilience, this paper discusses the operational logic of rural perceived resilience from the level of "pressure-state-perception-behavior-response", and constructs an indicator system from the perspective of "state-perception" and "behavior-response" based on the data of farmers' questionnaires in 12 villages in 3 towns, Qufu city, Shandong province in 2020. While evaluating the rural perceived resilience, we use the structural equation model to demonstrate the mechanism of rural perceived resilience. The results show that: (1) Rural perceived resilience refers to the ability of rural system to use rural resources to predict, absorb and adapt to rural change, and promote the restructuring of rural elements and the transformation of production and lifestyle, depending on its level of resource elements; (2) The diversified response of social networks and the state of production and construction have become the main components of rural perceived resilience, while the response path of livelihood diversification and material capital enrichment has not been fully formed; (3) Whether the way the rural system responds to the pressure can promote the transformation of traditional villages to modernization depends on the farmers' perception and behavioral decision-making. The better the farmers' perception of the rural state, the more inclined they are to actively use resources to promote the restructuring of rural elements, and fundamentally realize the transformation and development of villages; (4) We should improve the rural perceived resilience by optimizing spatial governance, promoting the transformation from "state-perception" to "behavior-response", and accurately regulating rural "pressure".

In China, territory development and urban-rural integration have become important ways to promote rural revitalization. However, Japan has relevant policies and rich experiences that are worth summarizing and referencing. This article examines Japan's socio-economic background and changes in the legislation and regulation of rural revitalization. Further, it summarizes policies and practices related to territory development and urban-rural integration, referring to the implementation mechanisms of rural revitalization to demonstrate the implications for China. The findings demonstrate that after World War II, urban-rural Japan shifted from competition to integration, and rural areas became important for ecological and environmental protection, cultural exchanges, sightseeing, and leisure. Through decades of exploration, Japan has formed a rural revitalization mechanism based on territory development and urban-rural integration, with multiple factor flow and spatial expansion functions. The main experiences in Japan provide a solid basis for rural revitalization through economic growth, legal systems, government-led planning and support measures, policy orientation transformation from external to endogenous rural development, balanced regional development with focused sectors, and IT-driven urban-rural value development and exchanges. Noteworthy problems include excessive dependence on centrally driven investments in the early stages, a lack of independent rural revitalization plans, and poor coordination between local and central authorities. In a relatively mature stage of economic development, with a unified national governance system, China has also formed effective rural revitalization policies and practice models. Japan's instructive experiences include improving territory development planning systems, accelerating specified legislation, developing innovative models of business management and rural governance, and smoothing urban-rural information exchanges.

The demand for urban and rural living services exhibits multilevel differentiation, and currently, there has been little research addressing the issues of multilevel demand differences and supply imbalances between urban and rural areas. This paper proposes and empirically proves the "Different configurations - Equivalent value" path of urban-rural living services equivalence based on the equivalence theory and the people-centered philosophy. Using four types of urban and rural spaces serving as the research objects, we primarily used the kernel density estimation and Densi-Graph threshold determination method to identify the urban core, urban-rural fringe, market town, and the countryside. Based on field questionnaire data of urban and rural residents, we construct a multilevel difference evaluation system for urban and rural living services; hence, the study aims at quantitatively describing the demand differences and shortcomings of living services for urban and rural residents. Our research shows that there are multilevel differences in the demand preference for living services between urban and rural residents, with resident diverse demands gradually converging from the urban core to the rural areas. Rural residents have more pressing demands for public basic services, and countryside-biased infrastructure investment can efficiently promote urban-rural equivalence. The degree of equivalence of urban and rural living services is low, with a multilevel gradient gap between urban and rural areas in the level of living services, manifested in the urban core > market town > urban-rural fringe > the countryside, and an urban-rural gap of 28 times. The gradient gap between the urban core and market towns is the largest and is the main component of the urban-rural gap. Improving the production and living environment in the countryside and implementing differential allocation between urban and rural areas are important means of achieving urban-rural equivalence. This paper provides a quantitative description of multilevel demand differences and supply shortcomings between urban and rural areas and proposes equivalent paths and suggestions for urban and rural living services; thus, the paper offers a scientific basis and methodological reference for the study of multilevel supply and demand relationships and equivalent development between urban and rural areas.

It is the mission and task entrusted to finance in the new era to "drip irrigate" the fertile land for rural development. In view of this, this paper presents an initial attempt to investigate whether and how regional financial supply promotes high-quality rural development in China. We first explain the influence mechanism of financial supply on high-quality rural development at the theoretical level, and hold that finance can contribute to the high-quality development of rural areas through its multiple effects released by its functional exertion, such as industrial promotion, environmental improvement, social norms and improvement of people's livelihood. Based on this theoretical analysis, we combine panel data from 31 provincial-level regions in China during the period 2005-2020 to construct an evaluation index system of finance and the high-quality rural development. Then the driving effect, mechanism and heterogeneity of finance on high-quality rural development were tested and revealed by using panel fixed effect model and mediation effect model. The results indicate that the improvement of the regional financial supply is conducive to the high-quality rural development, and this conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests conducted. However, this positive effect shows obvious spatial and temporal heterogeneity. For the eastern region and the period after 2014, the positive impacts of finance on the high-quality rural development are stronger. This finding was also confirmed by the Fisher Permutation Test. In addition, the analysis of action mechanism shows that for the total sample of all provinces and the five sub-samples, "promoting rural consumption upgrading and releasing the effect of improving people's livelihood" is the common channel of finance driving high-quality rural development. However, the industrial driving effect, environmental improvement effect and human capital effect brought by financial development only exist in some molecular samples. In general, this paper advances the understanding of the drivers of high-quality rural development and the effects, mechanisms and regional differences of financial empowerment for rural revitalization, and enriches the research perspectives of financial geography and rural geography.