Spatial Patterns and Driving Factors of Rural Population Loss under Urban–Rural Integration Development: A Micro-Scale Study on the Village Level in a Hilly Region

Under the background of urban–rural integration, balanced development between urban and rural areas has been increasingly advocated. Rural population loss (RPL) is not only due to the laws of social and economic development but also the comprehensive action of natural, social, and economic factors. Taking 774 administrative villages in Laiyang County, which is in a hilly region, as our research area, we comprehensively used spatial analysis and geographic detectors to explore the spatial characteristics and driving factors of RPL, which was significantly correlated with rural planning. The research demonstrated that: (1) The rural population in Laiyang County generally had a low level of RPL (1.9%), but each village varied greatly. The village with the greatest RPL had a rate of 56%. The RPL between urban and rural areas, towns and streets, and villages and villages were unbalanced, and rural population flow mainly occurred between urban and rural areas. (2) RPL in Laiyang County was generally low in the central urban area and high in the northern and southern areas. Population loss presents agglomeration globally and high–low agglomeration locally. (3) The distance from village to county, elevation, cultivated land quantity, collective economic income, village area, and ecological service value were the key factors influencing RPL in Laiyang County. When comparing the dominant factors, the interaction between collective income and elevation was the strongest. Exploring the spatial characteristics and influencing factors of RPL provided us with ideas for the classified promotion of rural revitalization, preparation of rural development planning, and promotion of the integrated development of urban and rural areas.

Modeling and forecasting the influence of social infrastructure development of interregional migration in Russia

At present demographic development of Russia and its regions is one of the most important factors of the country’s economic growth and also is key priority of the state government system. In spite of that, the issues of interregional migration are poorly represented in the strategic planning documents both at the federal and regional level. The major migration-induced population growth can be observed in the federal cities, capital areas and central part of Russia. At the same time in 2019 there was migration loss in 47 subjects of the Russian Federation. In many regions it is combined with the natural population loss aggravating the situation. The emerging closed loop (decreasing attractiveness of the area – migration loss – deteriorating social and economic situation – decreasing attractiveness of the area) results in increasing contradictions. Variety of factors determining the direction and the dynamics of migration flows requires a comprehensive study of these processes. The analysis conducted revealed that the level of development of the territory’s infrastructure is of great significance in this matter. Therefore, this direction is considered to be the main one. For quantification the authors established a complex of individual indicators which were preprocessed and consistently merged into directional integral and later into a single integral indicator of the level of social infrastructure development. Moreover, it is advisable to define five groups of regions according to the degree of their potential’s realization and to consider the affiliation of the subject of the federation to a particular group as an additional factor. Thus, the authors obtained the regression equation which describes the interrelation between the parameters under study. ANOVA revealed the opportunity of its practical application. Based on this model, a scenario forecast for the development of social infrastructure in Russia and its regions has been formed.

Features of depopulation in perm krai: state and trends

Objective. To study the features of depopulation in Perm Krai. Materials and methods. The data of Perm Krai official statistics for 20052019 were used; dynamics of vital rate compared to mean indicators in the Russian Federation were studied. Results. Since 2005 to 2019, the population in Perm Krai decreased by 5.7 %, whereas in the Russian Federation for the same period it grew by 2.1 % at the expense of migration processes; birth rate in Perm Krai reduced by 6.4 %; mortality rate in Perm Krai is 13.23 %. There is a growth trend of the natural population loss in both Perm Krai and the Russian Federation. Conclusions. In Perm Krai, there is observed an unfavorable demographic situation, which is characterized by a continuing decrease in the population and natural population loss. To improve the demographic situation in Perm Krai, it is expedient to develop a complex of measures directed to reduction of mortality, stimulation of birth rate, support of families with children as well as restoration of traditional family values and moral principles.

Volcanic climate impacts can act as ultimate and proximate causes of Chinese dynastic collapse

State or societal collapses are often described as featuring rapid reductions in socioeconomic complexity, population loss or displacement, and/or political discontinuity, with climate thought to contribute mainly by disrupting a society’s agroecological base. Here we use a state-of-the-art multi-ice-core reconstruction of explosive volcanism, representing the dominant global external driver of severe short-term climatic change, to reveal a systematic association between eruptions and dynastic collapse across two millennia of Chinese history. We next employ a 1,062-year reconstruction of Chinese warfare as a proxy for political and socioeconomic stress to reveal the dynamic role of volcanic climatic shocks in collapse. We find that smaller shocks may act as the ultimate cause of collapse at times of high pre-existing stress, whereas larger shocks may act with greater independence as proximate causes without substantial observed pre-existing stress. We further show that post-collapse warfare tends to diminish rapidly, such that collapse itself may act as an evolved adaptation tied to the influential “mandate of heaven” concept in which successive dynasties could claim legitimacy as divinely sanctioned mandate holders, facilitating a more rapid restoration of social order.

Research on Vitality Improvement Strategy for the Historic District of Taiyanggou in Lushun

Located in the Lushunkou District of Dalian, Liaoning Province, the Taiyanggou Historic District is one of the most well-preserved modern historic districts in China, with the most surviving historic heritages. The area is home to a large number of cultural heritages, ranging from national to district level, as well as a large number of modern historic buildings that are not on the conservation list, which have immeasurable historical and cultural value. This District is reputed as an “open-air architectural exposition”. However, as Lushun is a military port city, most of the area is under the jurisdiction of the army, and the government and the army have multiple administrations that do not form a unified combination, making it difficult to implement conservation and development in the Taiyanggou Historic District. Eventually, this leads to problems of stagnant development, environmental degradation, population loss, population aging and a gradual decline in the vitality of the district. Therefore, how to reshape the vitality of the district and promote its long-term development while preserving its original historical appearance to the greatest extent has become an urgent problem to be solved. The paper began with an in-depth interpretation of the connotation of “vitality” and “vitality improvement” in historic districts through previous studies. The five major components of the vitality of historic districts were summarized as physical space vitality, social vitality, cultural vitality, economic vitality and political vitality. Subsequently, from these five aspects, the elements of vitality of the Taiyanggou Historic District were extracted and summarized, and the problems of its current decline in vitality were analyzed. Finally, using the problem-oriented and goal-oriented research ideas, a targeted approach was adopted to explore strategies to improve the vitality and get out of its current development dilemma, with a view to shedding light on the conservation and renewal of Taiyanggou Historic District.

“A Dumping Ground for the South”: Race, Place, and Poverty in Newburgh, New York (1945-1961)

This article explores the urban politics that led to the outbreak of the Newburgh, New York, welfare controversy in 1961. It uncovers the intricate interplay between race, place, and poverty that led to the early backlash against social welfare from the immediate postwar years to the early 1960s. Newburgh officials engineered their welfare reform as a political response to the economic, demographic, and urban transformations the city underwent in the 1950s. Race was central to their concerns as they scapegoated newly arrived African American migrants and blamed them for the city’s population loss and slowing economy. Welfare reform served at once as a tool for migratory, demographic, and racial regulation. The Newburgh story demonstrates that welfare regulation was used by city officials to enforce racial hierarchies in the Jim Crow North and suggests that city politics should be taken into greater account in the history of the American welfare state.

Dimensions of Urban Blight in Emerging Southern Cities: A Case Study of Accra-Ghana

Urban blight functions inversely to city development and often leads to cities’ deterioration in terms of physical beauty and functionality. While the underlying causes of urban blight in the context of the global north are mainly known in the literature to be population loss, economic decline, deindustrialisation and suburbanisation, there is a research gap regarding the root causes of urban blight in the global south, specifically in prime areas. Given the differences in the property rights regimes and economic growth trajectories between the global north and south, the underlying reasons for urban blight cannot be assumed to be the same. This study, thus, employed a qualitative method and case study approach to ascertain in-depth contextual reasons and effects for urban blight in a prime area, East Legon, Accra-Ghana. Beyond economic reasons, the study found that socio-cultural practices of landholding and land transfer in Ghana play an essential role in how blighted properties emerge. In the quest to preserve cultural heritage/identity, successors of old family houses (the ancestral roots) do their best to stay in them without selling or redeveloping them. The findings highlight the less obvious but relevant functions that blighted properties play in the city core at the micro level of individual families in fostering social cohesion and alleviating the need to pay higher rents. Thus, in the global south, we conclude that there is a need to pay attention to the less obvious roles that so-called blighted properties perform and to move beyond the default negative perception that blighted properties are entirely problematic.

Child and Family Benefits to Halt Hungary’s Population Decline, 1965-2020: A Comparison with Polish and Romanian Family Policies

Based on the long-term, demographic forecast, Hungary faces a significant population loss. This paper examines the continuing low level of Hungarian fertility, as well as the marked decline of population due to out-migration beginning in the mid-2000s. First, I will discuss the role governmental family policies play in halting fertility decline before 1989, the demographic post-transitional period of 1960-1980 and the past thirty years since 1989. Second, this paper particularly aims to highlight the impact of the new family policy since 2010, a reverse redistribution of resources from poor to the better-off families which did not result in a marked growth of birth rates. The new family benefits possibly further contribute to the existing polarization of Hungarian society without altering Hungary’s demographic data. Finally, the paper also compares the recent changes of family policies in Poland, Hungary and Romania since 2004.

Honey Bee Colony Population Daily Loss Rate Forecasting and an Early Warning Method Using Temporal Convolutional Networks

The population loss rate of a honey bee colony is a critical index to verify its health condition. Forecasting models for the population loss rate of a honey bee colony can be an essential tool in honey bee health management and pave away to early warning methods in the understanding of potential abnormalities affecting a honey bee colony. This work presents a forecasting and early warning algorithm for the population daily loss rate of honey bee colonies and determining warning levels based on the predictions. Honey bee colony population daily loss rate data were obtained through embedded image systems to automatically monitor in real-time the in-and-out activity of honey bees at hive entrances. A forecasting model was trained based on temporal convolutional neural networks (TCN) to predict the following day’s population loss rate. The forecasting model was optimized by conducting feature importance analysis, feature selection, and hyperparameter optimization. A warning level determination method using an isolation forest algorithm was applied to classify the population daily loss rate as normal or abnormal. The integrated algorithm was tested on two population loss rate datasets collected from multiple honey bee colonies in a honey bee farm. The test results show that the forecasting model can achieve a weighted mean average percentage error (WMAPE) of 17.1 ± 1.6%, while the warning level determination method reached 90.0 ± 8.5% accuracy. The forecasting model developed through this study can be used to facilitate efficient management of honey bee colonies and prevent colony collapse.

Ageing and Inclusion in Rural Areas

This paper is presenting a research and development project related to areas with decreasing and ageing population. The focus of the study is on housing and the inclusion of older people in rural communities. The case study method was implemented in three shrinking municipalities in remote areas. The population loss in small ageing municipalities is affecting the number of local services as well as access to public transport. Most people 75 years old and older live in owner occupied single-family houses. The accessibility renovations of these houses for low-income older residents are challenging. Strategic long-term concepts are needed to improve the housing for older people and the urban quality of small municipal centers. Initiatives focusing on wellbeing and social cohesion are needed to enable people to remain living in rural areas in the future. Actions related to planning and services for the older population should contribute to social cohesion within the community. A dense and walkable municipal center with accessible apartments may help municipalities provide for their older populations. Future developments need to be based on resource efficiency and an intergenerational approach to keep these municipalities good places to live.