Abstract:
Rural spatial commodification can contribute to rural revitalization and urban-rural integration in China. Taking 103 county-level units in Hubei Province as the study area, this study aims to examine the spatial patterns, driving mechanisms, and development modes of rural spatial commodification. According to its connotation, an evaluation index system was constructed from four dimensions: production, living, ecological, and cultural space. Representative indicators included farmland transfer, geographical indication agricultural products, picking gardens, rural cafés, rural homestays, conventional villages, rural intangible cultural heritage items, and carbon sink trading value. The entropy weight and spatial autocorrelation analysis were used to measure the level of rural spatial commodification. There was the spatial differentiation, driving forces, and development zoning. The results show that rural spatial commodification was divided into four forms: rural production, living, cultural, and ecological space commodification. High-value areas of rural production-space commodification were concentrated in Gong’an County, Jianli County, and Xiangzhou District, Hubei Province, indicating relatively favorable agricultural production and factor agglomeration. High-value areas of rural living-space commodification were distributed in Huangpi District, Jiangxia District, Echeng District, Daye City, and Enshi City. Rural cultural-space commodification was prominent in Lichuan City, Enshi City, Xianfeng County, Yicheng City, and Zhongxiang City, indicating the conventional settlements, local cultural landscapes, and intangible cultural heritage resources. Rural ecological-space commodification shared the high values in Shennongjia Forestry District, Zhuxi County, and Tongshan County, whereas the central plain areas remained weak. Spatial autocorrelation analysis further indicated that rural spatial commodification exhibited significant positive spatial dependence and regional heterogeneity. High-high clusters were mainly concentrated in Enshi City, Lichuan City, Xuan’en County, and Xianfeng County, indicating neighboring counties with relatively high commodification levels for the contiguous agglomeration. In contrast, the low-low clusters were distributed in the downtown area of Wuhan, including Hongshan District and Wuchang District. Meanwhile, Yiling District and Daye City also displayed a high-low agglomeration pattern. The driving mechanism of rural spatial commodification was adjusted between bottom-up adaptation driven by market demand and top-down guiding under policy intervention. Two forces were mutually coupled to promote the evolution of rural spatial functions for the rural spatial value over the dimensions of production, living, culture, and ecology. The county-level units were classified into five types: rural living, production, production ecology, ecological and cultural-space dominated areas, according to the different dimensions of rural spatial commodification. Correspondingly, differentiated modes were proposed, including the service-oriented, agriculture-based, production-oriented, production-ecology coordinated, ecology-constrained, and culture-led development. The pathways were implemented, such as living service functions, industrial chains, production-ecology coordination, ecological value transformation, as well as cultural revitalization and utilization. The findings can provide the regional differentiation and functional transformation in the process of spatial rural reconstruction. Rural resource factors can also be optimized to promote the characteristic industries for rural revitalization in Hubei Province, China.