Governance and Global Practices of Socio-Spatial Planning to Enhance Urban-Rural Linkages
LI Fengqing, XIE Wenli, ZHOU Zhe, Grace GITHIRI
Abstract：
This paper focuses on the goal of “enhancing urban-rural linkages to promote sustainable urbanization” as set out in the global 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda, as well as the associated global practices. UN-Habitat’s Urban-Rural Linkages: Guiding Principles provides a normative framework and practical guidance for action, emphasizing new planning methods to create economic, social, and environmental opportunities that meet the needs of both urban and rural residents, thereby achieving a more inclusive and equitable new pattern of sustainable urban-rural development. In the case countries, the common vision for urban and rural areas is to “achieve balanced urban-rural development”, leading to the formulation of integrated comprehensive plans that promote inclusive development. However, the strategies and emphases on urban-rural linkages vary across regions: African cases primarily enhance urban-rural linkages through infrastructure development; European cases feature relatively systematic governance systems and treat rural revitalization as a routine indicator; cases in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean regions are gradually strengthening economic, social, cultural, and environmental interactions between rural and urban areas, yet mechanisms to facilitate factor flows remain to be further improved. Overall, practices in different countries are committed to adopting inclusive and participatory governance approaches, building multi-stakeholder engagement to establish balanced urban-rural collaborative relationships. Studying how global cases promote two-way flows of population, products, services, and information between urban and rural areas through planning governance is of great significance for China to build a new development paradigm of urban-rural integration.