The symbiosis of housing and industry is currently regarded to be the key to implement the national strategy of rural revitalization in China. However, challenges have emerged in portraying the spatial mismatch pattern of housing and industry development in rural regions from the demographic perspectives accompanying the massive rural-urban migration. The measurement of housing-industry symbiosis needs to be re-examined from a novel perspective. This paper attempts to bridge the gap by proposing two indices for unearthing the symbiotic relationship between housing and industry through the lens of land use. Taking Xuzhou as an example, we found that the distribution of rural housing and industrial lands is spatially uneven. And the uneven patterns of housing-industry symbiosis vary at different spatial scales. The results also indicate that township level might be a better scalar for the arrangement of rural land. Policies that aimed to promote the symbiotic development of housing and industry in rural Xuzhou and beyond are finally proposed.

Jinlong Gao, Weixuan Jiang, Jianglong Chen et al. Applied Geography. doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2020.102281