Imbalances in allocating public service resources are a universal problem worldwide, especially in urban and rural areas. As a developing country with a significant imbalance between urban and rural areas, China is representative of the unbalanced allocation of public service resources. Presently, China has entered the county urbanization stage. Therefore, this study can provide a new way to realize the equalization of urban and rural public services with the county as the basic unit. Taking counties as the primary study area, this paper analyzes the new trends of population mobility in China’s counties. It combines large-scale questionnaires and field surveys to investigate the new demand of rural residents for public services and the shortcomings of public service resource allocation. First, the county seat attracts a concentration of the county’s rural residents and returning population, whose high expectations for the county seat’s education and medical services have not yet been met. Second, the township assumes the vital function of elementary school education and medical services in rural areas, and the rural children have a great demand for elementary school education services in the township. However, there are still apparent shortcomings in support of teaching facilities and the quality of education services. Third, the problem of aging and hollowing out in rural areas is serious, and the education, medical and elderly service needs of left-behind children and the elderly are difficult to be guaranteed. Finally, this paper proposes targeted planning strategies and policy recommendations for allocating county public service resources at three levels based on the “county–town–village” hierarchy.

Driven by the Rural Revitalization Strategy, China has substantially increased its investment in rural infrastructure. Nevertheless, widespread issues such as underutilization and inadequate management persist. Recognizing rural infrastructure as a complex and interdependent system, this study applies complex network analysis to evaluate data from 98 counties, treating each county as an analytical unit and various infrastructure types as network nodes. A rural infrastructure interdependency network is constructed to examine the interdependencies among infrastructure and the overarching structural characteristics of the system. The analysis demonstrates that the rural infrastructure network exhibits pronounced modularity, with three distinct functional clusters: (1) electricity–water–broadband internet, (2) public service infrastructure, and (3) housing–environmental governance infrastructure. Furthermore, by employing a network dismantling approach that simulates facility management failures through the progressive removal of nodes, this study identifies paved roads and electricity supply stability as critical nodes within the rural infrastructure network. The failure of these infrastructures triggers systemic fragmentation and functional collapse, indicating their pivotal role in maintaining overall network integrity. These findings offer theoretical support for the optimization of infrastructure maintenance strategies, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the overall resilience and sustainable development capacity of rural infrastructure systems.