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1 Introduction
For quite a long time, urban and rural areas were treated as two separate issues with little consideration of their interrelations ([34] Roberts, 1978; [9] Gilbert and Gugler, 1982; [12] Harris, 1982). By contrast, the concept of urban-rural interaction has emerged in recent years, as a way of challenging this persistent dichotomy and promoting an integrated conception of cities and countryside on the basis of both their spatial and functional interdependencies ([8] Davoudi and Stead, 2002). In an over 60-year period after People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, urban-rural interaction in China has evolved a lot and presented different features in different periods. The country experienced centrally planned economy in the first 30 years and shifted to the market economy after 1978. In the planned economy, priorities from the state were given to heavy industries and cities. Rural areas became the base from which materials and capital were supplied to cities and industries ([42] Yang and Cai, 2000). Besides, household registration system which was to control rural immigrants into cities distinguished rural areas from urban areas ([5] Cheng and Selden, 1994). In the market economy after 1978, the booming urban and rural economy intensified resource flows between these two parts. Urban-rural interaction had induced great demographic and economic changes both in cities and countryside. Ever since the beginning of twenty-first century, a series of rural-favored policies were made by the central government. Urban-rural interaction in China has shifted from long-time urban-biased stage to "industry nurturing agriculture and cities supporting countryside".
Historical review merely depicts the evolution of urban-rural interaction in China. However, it is still uncertain if such review can adequately reflect the reality. The aim of this paper is to measure urban-rural interaction in China, and to see if quantitative analysis is in line with the historical evolution. Section 2 proposes a theoretical framework of urban-rural interaction. Section 3 historically reviews urban-rural interaction in China in four different periods. Section 4 uses principal component analysis (PCA) and measures urban-rural interaction. The concluding section compares the empirical result with the historical review and provides some policy implications.
2 Theoretical framework of urban-rural interaction
Basically, urban-rural interaction refers to the flows of people, capital, materials, information and technology between urban and rural...