Urban-rural integration has been found to be an inevitable trend in the development of urban-rural relations and a vital measure to tackle the unbalanced and uncoordinated development between urban and rural areas. The urban–rural relationship is a vital issue in human social development and has aroused wide attention from scholars worldwide. Urban-rural integration is an advanced stage in the development of urban-rural relations and reflects the evolution of urban-rural relations, which can be traced back to the urban-rural development concept of the ideal socialists. 城乡一体化是城乡关系发展的必然趋势，是应对城乡发展不平衡、不协调的重要举措。城乡关系是人类社会发展的重要问题，引起了世界各国学者的广泛关注。城乡一体化是城乡关系发展的高级阶段，反映了城乡关系的演变，可以追溯到理想社会主义者的城乡发展理念。
1. Introduction
城乡经济一体化是指在平等的经济政策下，通过资源和要素的双向流动和优化配置，城乡边际回报趋于平等；城乡社会一体化是指确保公共服务（如就业、教育、医疗和基础设施）在城乡居民中同等重要；城乡生态一体化是通过城乡区域系统的综合协同管理，实现城乡高度融合、互补的状态。城乡空间一体化是指城乡系统在人流、物流、信息流等方面的互动和融合，是城乡一体化发展的载体和基础条件。
I 随着城乡一体化战略的不断推进，城乡之间的因素发生了迅速的变化，从而逐步打破了城乡之间的界限、结构甚至作用机制[ 16], and the course of urbanization and modernization,long-existing “dualistic order” has triggered the endogenous demand for “common (integrated) developed and developing nations are facing the decline in the countrysidement”. Driven by urbanization and industrialization, urban-rural territorial systems tend to be more coordinated, and the gap between rural and urban areas is ir functions and structures are becoming increasingly prominent in numerous parts of the worldmulti-dimensional. Scholars in ecology have concluded [1]. Thus, the correlation between urban and urban-rural developmentintegration should be stressed in all periodsachieve the elimination of the imbalance of economiclogical development, which is the most fundamental economic and social relationship in a country, and as an integral part of the between urban and rural areas, while scholars in geography have suggested that urban and -rural territorial system, the two have always been an inseparable organic fusionintegration should be a rational [2]. With the continuous promotion of urbanization, the interaatial connection between urban and rural areas is becoming increasingly closer, thus promotingsystems. Other scholars have clarified the continuous transformanotation of urban and -rural development. However, unlike developed nations,integration in accordance with “flow space” and urbanization in developing nations is often at the expense of the-rural equivalence theory and have argued that in the era of rapid development of rural areas, which causes inequality in the flow of a considerable number of f information technology, conventional factors and the decline in rural areas(e.g., land and population) break [3]. Accthrordinugly, the question of how to achieve integrated rural-urban development and rural rejuvenation has become a common challenge for all nations worldwide, and it takes on great significance in achievih the limitations of the field and exhibit dynamic and networked characteristics, thus affecting the goal of global sustainable development.mechanism of urban-rural factor flow [17、18 ]。_ 此外，按照城乡对等理论，城乡一体化发展的内涵凸显了城乡发展的“不同但平等”的本质。总之，城乡一体化发展应通过要素的双向流动和资源的有效配置，实现城乡区域系统经济、社会、生态领域的互动与融合，最终实现城乡对等的发展。上述过程也指异质二元结构向同质整体结构的转变，这对城乡一体化发展至关重要。
Urban-rural integration has been found to be an inevitable trend in the development of urban-rural relations and a vital measure to tackle the unbalanced and uncoordinated development between urban and rural areas. With the continuous promotion of urbanization, the interaction between urban and rural areas is becoming increasingly closer, thus promoting the continuous transformation of urban and rural development. In addition, the connotation of the development of urban-rural integration in accordance with the theory of urban-rural equivalence highlights the “different but equal” nature of urban-rural development. In brief, the integrated development of urban and rural areas should be achieved through the two-way flow of factors and the effective allocation of resources to achieve the interaction and integration of the economic, social and ecological fields of the urban and rural regional systems, and ultimately the development of urban and rural equivalence. The above process also refers to the transformation of the heterogeneous dual structure into a homogeneous monolithic structure, which is essential to the development of urban-rural integration [4].
The urban–rural relationship is a vital issue in human social development and has aroused wide attention from scholars worldwide. Urban-rural integration is an advanced stage in the development of urban-rural relations and reflects the evolution of urban-rural relations, which can be traced back to the urban-rural development concept of the ideal socialists [4]. Existing research on the development of urban-rural integration primarily focuses on the theory of urban-rural relations, connotation elaboration and level measurement, and attempts to measure the level of regional development of urban-rural integration and explore its intrinsic factors by constructing a comprehensive index system [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].
As revealed by the above theoretical analysis, integrated urban-rural development is a complex, multi-level and multi-element composite structural system with profound connotations. The core meaning of urban-rural integrated development lies in the premise of ensuring the effective allocation of urban and rural factors and resources in both directions, realizing the co-prosperity and co-existence of urban and rural areas through the benign interaction between urban and rural areas, realizing the multi-dimensional integrated development of urban and rural areas in economic, social, ecological and spatial aspects, and ultimately realizing the equivalence of urban and rural regional systems [7]. The specific connotation is presented below. Urban-rural economic integration means that the marginal rewards of urban and rural areas tend to be equal through the two-way flow and optimal allocation of resources and factors under equal economic policies; urban-rural social integration means ensuring that public services (for example., employment, education, medical care and infrastructure) are of equal significance in urban and rural residents; urban-rural ecological integration is achieved through comprehensive and collaborative management of urban and rural regional systems to achieve a state of high integration and complementarity of urban and rural areas. Urban-rural spatial integration refers to the interaction and integration of urban and rural systems in terms of human, logistic and information flows, which is the carrier and basic condition for urban-rural integrated development.
2. Application
Under the goal of regional development, integrated urban-rural development should also achieve a unified process of achieving economic-social-ecological benefits of the urban-rural territorial system and a process of spatially balanced development of the urban-rural territorial system [13]. Accordingly, the theory of regional spatial equilibrium model can be borrowed to construct a spatial equilibrium model of urban-rural integrated development to reveal the inner mechanism of urban-rural integrated development.
Thus, under integrated regional urban-rural development, various factors of production (including population) in the region are free to move. The comprehensive development benefits of regional development (ΣFM) consists of social benefit F1, economic benefit F2 and ecological benefit F3; and if it is assumed that a certain type of development benefit AM is composed of land BM, labor CM, technology DM, and capital EM and other factors of production.This model is an extension of the idea of balanced regional development theory and can more effectively explain the inner mechanism of integrated urban-rural development [14]. Under integrated urban-rural development, through the flow and optimal allocation of factors, urban and rural territorial systems can eventually achieve equal development benefits per capita in urban and rural territorial systems, i.e., eventually realize the equivalence of urban and rural development, and the expression of the model of balanced urban-rural development [15].In line with the above connotation explanation, the two-way flow of factors between urban and rural areas and the optimal allocation of resources are vital prerequisites for achieving integrated urban-rural development. First, relevant studies have found that China’s urbanization level is still lower than the average of comparable nations in the world [16]. Second, as the level of integrated development between urban and rural areas is being improved, increasing modernization factors in cities are allocated to rural systems, which are manifested as the net inflow of capital, technology and other factors. Third, with the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the proportion of basic public services in rural areas is increasing, which is manifested as an increasing proportion of public goods. Through the flow and optimal allocation of factors between urban and rural areas, the population of rural areas (O1) tends to decrease within a certain range, along with the continuous promotion of urbanization. Through the input of various factors from cities and the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the comprehensive development efficiency of the rural territorial system tends to increase, which means that the per capita development efficiency of the rural territorial system is increasing, and the spatial, economic and social distribution of the urban and rural territorial system is optimized. As a result, the per capita development efficiency of the urban and rural territorial system eventually tends to be equalized, and the integrated development of urban and rural areas is achieved. 在区域发展目标下，城乡一体化发展还应实现城乡地域体系经济-社会-生态效益的统一过程和城乡地域体系空间均衡发展的过程。 空间均衡城乡一体化发展模式能够更有效地解释城乡一体化发展的内在机制[ 22 ]。根据上述内涵解释，城乡要素双向流动和资源优化配置是实现城乡融合发展的重要前提。首先，相关研究发现，中国的城市化水平仍低于世界可比国家的平均水平[ 23]。二是随着城乡一体化发展水平的不断提高，越来越多的城市现代化要素被配置到农村体系中，表现为资本、技术等要素的净流入。第三，随着乡村振兴战略的实施，农村基本公共服务比重不断提高，表现为公共产品比重不断提高。通过城乡之间要素的流动和优化配置，随着城镇化的不断推进，农村人口在一定范围内趋于减少。通过城市多方面因素的输入和乡村振兴战略的实施，农村地域体系综合发展效率趋于提高，即农村地域体系人均开发效率不断提高，城乡地域体系空间、经济和社会布局优化。由此，城乡地域体系的人均发展效率最终趋于均等化，实现城乡一体化发展。
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