The State Council recently issued the “Urban Renewal Plan for the 15th Five-Year Period” (hereinafter referred to as the “Plan”), which sets out key tasks for urban renewal during this period, including fostering and strengthening new drivers of urban development, creating high-quality urban living spaces, and promoting the thriving development of urban culture. The Plan also calls for enriching integrated business models that combine culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions.

In fostering high-quality urban living spaces, the Plan proposes renovating and upgrading aging commercial and residential districts, refining functional layouts, addressing shortcomings in infrastructure and public services, optimizing traffic management, enhancing the quality of public spaces, and diversifying mixed-use offerings that integrate culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions. It also calls for innovative, immersive consumption experiences. Furthermore, it advocates integrated renewal and redevelopment of outdated transportation hubs and their surrounding neighborhoods, promotes the repurposing of old industrial sites, improves on-site and adjacent amenities, refines the landscape, strengthens the protection and adaptive reuse of industrial heritage, and revitalizes underutilized or inefficient factory areas, buildings, and facilities by introducing new business models and functions. The Plan encourages market‑driven approaches to the transformation and upgrading of these legacy industrial zones.

With regard to fostering the prosperity and development of urban culture, the Plan stipulates that historic and cultural cities, neighborhoods, and cultural relics, along with their surrounding landscapes, shall be comprehensively protected. It calls for launching projects to safeguard and enhance these historic and cultural enclaves, as well as undertaking restoration work on immovable cultural relics, historic buildings, and traditional dwellings. A resident‑centered implementation mechanism will be established to improve the quality of the living environment, while resolutely preventing large‑scale demolition and reconstruction or the replacement of authentic structures with imitations. The Plan also promotes dynamic revitalization, encouraging the adaptive reuse of immovable cultural relics, historic buildings, industrial heritage sites, historic and cultural neighborhoods, and other historically significant areas. On the premise of rigorously preserving their core values and traditional character, such spaces will be repurposed to accommodate new business models and functions, leveraging culture to drive industrial development and enrich urban cultural experiences and tourism‑leisure offerings—while avoiding excessive commercialization and homogenization.