Urbanization, Rural E-Commerce Villages, and Regional Solutions for Urban–Rural Coordinated Development in China

With the rapid development of e-commerce, Taobao Villages have emerged as a representative form of rural e-commerce in China, exerting a profound influence on rural economic transformation and urban–rural integration. However, their spatiotemporal distribution is uneven and exhibits a complex interaction with urbanization. Drawing on data from 178 cities between 2017 and 2022, this study employs the Spatial Autoregressive Model (SAR), Spatial Error Model (SEM), and Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to examine both the direct and spillover effects of urbanization on Taobao Villages. The results indicate that Taobao Villages display significant spatial clustering across China. While urbanization exerts a positive short-term effect on the number of local Taobao Villages, this effect weakens in the long term and under spatial interaction, and higher levels of urbanization in one region impose significant negative spillover effects on neighboring areas. These findings highlight the dual nature of urbanization in simultaneously promoting and constraining rural e-commerce development. Accordingly, policy efforts should focus on rational administrative spatial adjustment and boundary reorganization, optimizing the urban–rural spatial structure, supporting the development of peripheral and disadvantaged regions, enhancing the balanced and efficient flow of factors across regions, and fostering differentiated development pathways to strengthen the resilience of Taobao Villages and promote healthy and sustainable urban–rural integration.