Exploring the Determinants of Rural Housing Vacancy in Mountainous Regions: Evidence from Jinshan Town, Fujian Province, China

Wenkui Wang, Xue Ji, Chanjuan Xu, Haiping Zhou and Tao Luo ()
Additional contact information
Wenkui Wang: School of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China
Xue Ji: School of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China
Chanjuan Xu: Natural Resources Bureau of Pingnan County, Ningde 352300, China
Haiping Zhou: School of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China
Tao Luo: School of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 11, 1-26

Abstract: The rational management of vacant rural housing is critical for optimization of Territorial Spatial Patterns. Although the issue of rural housing vacancy (RHV) has attracted widespread attention, systematic investigations in mountainous regions remain limited. This study is based on census data covering 3039 rural houses across six villages in Jinshan Town, Nanjing County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, China. Using binary logistic regression and the XGBoost machine learning model, it systematically identifies the dominant determinants of rural housing vacancy in mountainous areas and evaluates their relative importance. The results show that the relative importance of the influencing factors is ranked as follows: locational conditions, physical housing characteristics, and topographic features. Specifically, among locational factors, the distances to the national road, county government, township government, and village committee centers are the most critical determinants of housing vacancy. In terms of physical attributes, the number of stories, the structural type, the floor area per story, and the orientation of the house are key variables. Regarding topographic factors, slope and aspect have limited overall influence. The two models yielded consistent directions and magnitudes of the key predictors, confirming the robustness and reliability of the results. The findings of this study help address the existing gaps in research regions, influencing factors, and methodological approaches, thereby contributing to the promotion of sustainable rural development.

Keywords: mountainous regions; rural housing vacancy; influencing factors; rural governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/11/2187/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/11/2187/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:11:p:2187-:d:1786764

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().