Even in our so-called “Urban Age”, almost half of the world’s population continues to live in rural areas. However, in urban research and practice, the “countryside” has not yet received the attention it deserves as a provider of food, water, energy, biodiversity, and other resources. It is essential to approach urban development more holistically, tackling the interrelationships and metabolisms between urban and rural areas. Such an integrative view calls for circular economies, equitable distribution of resources, practices of solidarity, and care for more-than-human species at the urban-rural interface, while involving multiple and diverse actors through “co-visioning” processes.

The Urban-Rural Assembly project has addressed these critical issues since 2019. A multi-disciplinary, Sino-German research team has studied rapid socio-spatial transformation processes in urban-rural living labs in Zhejiang Province, China, developing strategies and tools for future change.
This closing conference will present some of the project’s main findings and feature contributions from international experts on territorial planning approaches, best practices from various regions, and policy approaches for just and sustainable urban-rural development