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Residents’ urbanized landscape preferences in rural areas reveal the importance of naturalness-livability contrast

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Abstract

Urbanization has caused significant landscape changes in rural areas, leading to the emergence of urbanized landscapes (ULs), which have been generally criticized by authorities and professionals. However, perceptions of ULs among local residents have rarely been studied. In this study, we chose five typical categories of ULs from rapidly transforming villages in Fujian Province, China — hardened water bank (HWB), big pavilion (BPA), big memorial arch (BMA), big ornamental lawn (BOL), and big square (BSQ) to do the study. We identified how these ULs were rated and ranked by on-site surveys, as well as how related aesthetic and multifunctional landscape characters (LCs) played a role. The results (N=550) showed that 1) residents supported the construction of ULs, and the most preferred category was that with the most natural elements (BOL) that was simultaneously well maintained. 2) For the residents, the longer they had resided in the village and the fewer connections they had with the city, the more in favor they were of the ULs, and the more eager they were for landscape change. In addition, residents with higher education and Communist Party of China membership valued the naturalness related LCs more highly. 3) Two contradictory preference features, naturalness and livability, should be well coordinated and balanced to construct an improved favorable village for the residents, to realize a balanced and sustainable development path. This study makes great theoretical contributions to landscape research and provides new insights into rural planning and construction.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and critical comment, which have improved the quality of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200438, China

    Gaoyuan Yang & Zhaowu Yu

  2. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 1958, Denmark

    Gaoyuan Yang & Søderkvist Kristensen Lone

  3. College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350108, China

    Tao Luo

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  1. Gaoyuan Yang
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Correspondence to Zhaowu Yu.

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Foundation: National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.42171093; Scientific and Innovative Action Plan of Shanghai, No.21ZR1408500; Shanghai Pujiang Program, No.21PJ1401600; Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, No.SHUES2021A02; China Scholarship Council

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Yang, G., Yu, Z., Luo, T. et al. Residents’ urbanized landscape preferences in rural areas reveal the importance of naturalness-livability contrast. J. Geogr. Sci. 32, 1493–1512 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-022-2007-4

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