Effects of Spatial Accessibility on Farmers’ Willingness to Withdraw from Rural Homesteads in China

The rapid expansion of global urbanization and industrialization has intensified land-use conflicts in rural areas, particularly in developing countries, where idle homesteads remain a significant challenge. Using survey data from 1,538 respondents in the Yellow River Basin, this study analyzed the spatial distribution of willingness to withdraw from rural homesteads (WRH) through buffer zone analysis and investigated the influencing factors using geographic detector. The results reveal that the willingness to WRH exhibits a significant regional distribution, with lower willingness observed in plain areas than in hilly regions. The willingness to WRH is nonlinearly related to the distance from the township centers, positively correlated with the distance from secondary roads, and inversely correlated with the distance from industrial parks. Additionally, the synergistic effect of the distance from the county roads and the housing areas influences the willingness to WRH. These insights contribute to understanding the factors influencing the distribution of willingness to WRH, helping alleviate the contradiction between rural residents and land while reducing idle homestead rates.