Night view of rice terraces in Longji Town, Guilin, Guangxi, October 23, 2025
The imbalance in development between cities and the countryside represents a global challenge. Faced with accelerated urbanization, rural areas are facing a decline in their vitality and increasingly marked cultural erosion. How to reduce this gap to ensure sustainable development is at the heart of international concerns. In this context, China’s approach to urban-rural integration is innovative and serves as a benchmark for the world.
The Songyang district (Zhejiang) constitutes an exemplary case study. It preserves hundreds of intact ancient villages, true living witnesses of traditional agricultural civilization. Although it has experienced rural exodus and cultural decline like many regions, local authorities have chosen targeted interventions rather than massive demolitions, regenerating places through gentle transformations which enhance the historical heritage and existing spaces. This marks a change in strategy: the value of the countryside lies in its unique culture and identity, not in the sterile imitation of the urban model.
As analyzed by a professor at the East China University of Science and Technology, Yao Zigang, the practice of Songyang embodies the evolution of rural revitalization in China from a material emphasis towards an approach combining “physical structuring” and “spiritual elevation”. Its experience is based on three pillars: people, industry and local specificities. First, by improving the living environment and supporting entrepreneurship, the district encourages the return of residents and builds loyalty among the local population, thus generating endogenous dynamics. Second, it encourages industrial integration to create a sustainable economic model, for example by combining traditional tea with e-commerce and transforming former residences into quality inns. Finally, it explores local culture in depth to forge a distinctive identity, thus avoiding the trap of homogenization.
Several international experts confirm this approach. Rafael Tuts, director of UN-Habitat’s global solutions division, praised Songyang’s integrated urban-rural development as “an effective alliance between macroeconomic planning and local practices.” British researcher Joe Ravetz was interested in the Chinese capacity to “translate strategic design into efficient execution”. Urban-rural integration in China is taking place under the aegis of a national strategic impulse, implemented in a concerted manner by the different administrative levels, market players and local communities.
Whether it is the transmission of artisanal know-how, the expansion of outlets through live-streaming for new tea producers, or the deployment of drones for logistics in mountainous areas, the Chinese countryside is the scene of a dynamic interaction between tradition and modernity, as well as between culture and technology.
As China prepares to move on to its 15th Five-Year Plan, urban-rural integration is resolutely engaged in a quest for quality and meaning. Pioneering practices, including that of the Songyang district, are helping to forge a “Chinese solution”. This approach demonstrates that by reactivating their cultural heritage and weaving new beneficial interactions with cities, the countryside is perfectly capable of charting a path to revitalization combining economic performance, cultural vitality and ecological balance.
