Promoting Integrated Urban-Rural Development in the Central Urban Area of Chengdu: its Foundations, Challenges, and Pathways

Chengdu, characterized by its “large city with extensive rural areas," serves as a pioneer in exploring the integrated development of urban and rural areas nationwide. In recent years, Chengdu has optimized the urban-rural spatial structure, shaped a new form of a park city, facilitated the flow of urban-rural elements, promoted the integration and prosperity of industries, and created a harmonious city where “people, city, environment, and industry” blend harmoniously, aiming to create a happy and beautiful life, comprehensively improving the quality of integrated urban-rural development, and continuously strengthening the foundation for the central urban area to play a core leading role. Under new circumstances, the integrated development of urban and rural areas in Chengdu's central urban area faces a series of challenges, including the inherent contradictions between urbanization inertia and integrated urban-rural development, the difficulty in balancing the radiation effect and the siphon effect of a mega-city, and the practical difficulties of advancing at a high level and continuous innovation. In response, the central urban area of Chengdu should take top-level design as a guide, strengthen planning integration and linkage, use industrial integration as a traction to promote orderly flow of elements, improve governance integration level based on modern living conditions, and continuously expand the pathways for integrated urban-rural development.