Application and Validation of a Municipal Administrative Area Spatial Zoning Model in Village-Town System Planning

The overall planning of urban and rural areas is the focus of municipal administrative area (MAA) planning in the process of economic globalization, and village-town system planning is the key to the overall planning of urban and rural areas. Based on the theory of spatial equilibrium and economic logic, an objective municipal administrative area spatial zoning model (M-MSZ) was constructed in our previous study. The M-MSZ model can provide guidance in the planning of a village-town system. This paper takes a city in the south of Heilongjiang Province in China as an example and compares the M-MSZ model with six traditional MAA spatial zoning models (the urban growth boundary model, land use planning model, spatial governance zoning model, major MAA location, layout and planning model, development timing-order and zoning model, and scale and function zoning model) to verify the value and superiority of the M-MSZ model in the planning of a village-town system. The consistency Kappa values were 78.2%, 83.3%, 82.3%, 79.8%, 75.7%, and 83.9%, respectively, which means that the M-MSZ model was highly consistent with those comparison models. Meanwhile, the regression coefficient R2 is higher than that of the traditional spatial zoning models, which means that the objectivity of the M-MSZ model is higher than that of traditional models. The superiority of the M-MSZ model over the traditional MAA spatial zoning model lies not only in its capacity to grasp the core content of village-town system planning, but also in its capacity to unify the decentralized urban system planning models that are used for village-town system planning, while realizing the objectivity of a weight assignment. Its unified model structure, objective integrated model system, and high accuracy make the M-MSZ model capable of solving the key problems associated with village-town system planning, with many advantages, such as easy operation, high efficiency, good inheritance, low cost, and greater objectivity, detail, and accuracy. In addition, it can provide a reference for the development model of a MAA village-town system.