The "15th Five-Year Plan" period represents a crucial stage for the deep integration of China’s new urbanization and digitalization. Cities are facing challenges such as negative population growth and the decline of land finance. Traditional governance paradigms, due to technological fragmentation, institutional barriers, and value imbalances, struggle to adapt to new demands. Based on holistic governance theory, this study constructs a "Value-Actor-Institution-Technology" analytical framework. It reveals the logic of multi-actor collaboration, institutional restructuring, and technological integration underpinned by public value: Values anchor public interest, Actors shift to multi-party co-governance, Institutions tackle cross-domain coordination challenges, and Technology enables pan-domain penetration through data-driven approaches. Building on this, the study further proposes paradigm innovation pathways for city-wide digital transformation during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, along with differentiated adaptation models based on city types. This provides theoretical support and practical pathways for building modern People-oriented Cities, propelling cities towards in-depth advancement in holistic digital-intelligent governance.

Given the crucial role and profound significance of cloud-edge collaborative intelligent computing networks for future urban development, this analysis examines the key functions of both centralized and distributed cooperative AI computing power networks in future cities from theoretical and practical perspectives. Taking Beijing as an example, it designs an innovative collaborative architecture scheme of AI computing power featuring a "centralized core hub + distributed edge nodes". The study finds that centralized intelligent computing, with its powerful computational capabilities, supports macro-level applications such as urban digital brains, complex governance models, and large-scale industrial upgrades, serving as a core engine for urban economic growth and innovation-driven development. In contrast, decentralized edge intelligent computing leverages its advantages of low latency, high privacy, and localized processing to empower micro-level applications like smart homes, personal health monitoring, and real-time traffic management, directly enhancing residents’ quality of life and the city’s instant response capabilities. Therefore, the cloud-edge collaborative intelligent computing network represents an inevitable trend for addressing the complex challenges of modern cities and achieving intelligent transformation. It not only significantly improves urban operational efficiency and refined governance but also drives the growth of the digital economy, promotes industrial intelligent upgrading, optimizes public services, and comprehensively elevates residents’ quality of life, exerting a far-reaching impact on urban development.

This paper uses data from 158 shrinking cities in China from 2010 to 2023 to explore the fit between the two and their causal mechanisms. Research has shown that: The overall adaptability relationship is poor, and the adaptation level is mainly characterized by extreme and relatively poor adaptation. The ranking of regional levels from high to low is in the central, eastern, northeastern, and western regions. In terms of temporal changes, except for the central region, all other regions show a downward trend. In terms of spatial distribution, it has strong agglomeration characteristics and is highly unsuitable for dense distribution in Northeast, North, Northwest, Southwest, and Shandong Hunan provinces, while more suitable cities are mainly distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The types of adaptation can be divided into four categories: tapping potential development, intensive expansion, inefficient expansion, and extensive expansion. In terms of causes, due to the influence of natural resources and location endowment, economic foundation and industrial structure, management system and policy factors, urban shrinkage generates high fiscal expenditure rigidity and maintenance pressure, low investment return rate, and weak fiscal revenue caused by declining domestic demand, resulting in an imbalance between local fiscal revenue and expenditure, and the failure to form a good matching relationship between local government debt and economic development in shrinking cities.

Exploring innovative governance models tailored to the characteristics of concentrated affordable housing communities is of significant importance for achieving inclusive development and advancing the construction of modern people-centered cities. Based on longitudinal research of Community H in City C, this study identifies the formation and operational logic of "conservative governance" in such communities. The findings reveal that under the triple structural constraints of "spatial risks, institutional environment, and resource capacity," these communities adopt governance strategies characterized by bottom-line anchoring of governance objectives, proceduralized control of governance processes, and defensive allocation of governance resources. While these strategies may maintain short-term stability, they exacerbate spatial injustice, suppress residents’ development rights, and lead to governance involution. The study proposes institutional empowerment measures to facilitate the transformation of affordable housing communities from "defensive control" to "developmental governance." Recommendations include strengthening governmental leadership responsibilities and reconstructing urban spatial justice, promoting targeted resource allocation and rebuilding incentive mechanisms, and enhancing community development capacity and governance resilience.

Digital-real integration is an important embodiment of digital technology empowering the real economy, and also an important starting point to promote the comprehensive green transformation of China’s economy and society. Based on China’s county panel data from 2013 to 2022, this paper constructs an index of digital-real integration degree from the perspective of technology-driven industrial integration, and empirically tests its impact and mechanism on county green and low-carbon development. We find that the improvement of data-real integration significantly reduces the county carbon emission intensity, and this finding is still valid after a series of robustness tests. The mechanism analysis shows that industrial structure upgrading and green and low-carbon technology innovation are important paths to promote the green and low-carbon development of counties through the integration of data and reality; Third, heterogeneous industrial integration types have different impacts on carbon emission intensity. In the dimensions of government environmental attention degree, economic agglomeration degree and old industrial base, the integration of data and real has heterogeneous effects on county green and low-carbon development. Fourthly, the extended analysis finds that the data-real integration is helpful to realize the coordinated development of pollution reduction and carbon reduction and economic growth. The research conclusions of this paper not only expand the relevant research on data-real integration, but also provide empirical evidence and policy reference for promoting green and low-carbon transformation at the county level.

With the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region entering its second decade, there is a growing urgency for theoretical frameworks on regional development that suit China’s national realities and the unique characteristics of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. This paper uses bibliometric methods to analyze the evolutionary characteristics of research on the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region based on over 3,600 academic papers published in Chinese core journals from 2014 to 2024. Findings show that topics such as collaborative governance, spatial construction, and industrial synergy have drawn significant attention, aligning with national strategies. Research themes demonstrate distinct stage characteristics, evolving from collaborative governance and urban agglomeration development to innovation synergy and spatial structure optimization, and further integrating emerging trends like carbon neutrality and the digital economy. Phased analysis shows that the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has undergone four stages: top-level design, implementation promotion, critical breakthroughs, and a new journey toward Chinese-style modernization. Each stage has deepened research to provide theoretical support for strategic advancement. Future research should focus on key challenges such as building a world-class urban agglomeration and integrating industrial and innovation chains.

Taking the Green Rural Revival Program as the research object, this paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework for precise governance based on the logic of public governance, explains the connotation and theoretical logic of precise governance and further proposes practical approaches. Research shows that the theoretical logic of precise governance contained in the Green Rural Revival Program lies in multi-dimensional dynamic setting of governance objectives, multi-party collaborative interaction of governance subjects, vertical and horizontal integration of governance structures, innovative and incentive-driven governance mechanisms, and comprehensive and coordinated application of governance tools. Guided by governance objectives, multiple governance subjects participate in an orderly manner and work in coordination, forming a governance structure that is cross-level and vertically integrated, and precisely applying appropriate governance tools based on governance demands. A reasonable and smooth governance structure provides key support for the operation of governance mechanisms, while rich governance tools fully empower the governance mechanisms through means such as technology, systems, and service, thereby achieving the precise implementation of governance objectives. In the future, precise governance should focus on value co-creation, digital intelligence-driven development, and institutional innovation to build a grassroots social governance community, laying a solid foundation for promoting integrated urban-rural development and enhancing the quality and efficiency of governance capabilities.

Advancing energy transition is a key task for accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development. Innovation is both an intrinsic requirement for promoting high-quality energy development and a crucial focal point for achieving energy transition. Using data from 282 major Chinese cities and treating the national innovative city pilot policy as a quasi-experiment, this study employs an overlapping difference-in-differences approach to examine the impact and mechanism of innovation-driven policies on energy transition. Findings reveal that the national innovative city policy has facilitated urban energy transition. Specifically, this policy achieves energy transition through mechanisms such as promoting green consumption by reducing urban energy intensity, enhancing green innovation by guiding innovation investment directions, and fostering green employment by optimizing industrial composition. Furthermore, the policy’s impact on energy transition yields greater marginal effects in non-resource-based cities, cities with high R&D expenditure ratios, cities with smaller industrial output scales, and cities lacking renewable energy resources. Additionally, energy transition improves urban environmental pollution and reduces industrial waste discharge. The findings not only deepen understanding of innovation’s pivotal role in driving urban energy transition but also offer policy insights for cities seeking to leverage innovation in advancing energy transformation.

Under the field of old urban communities, the development of complete communities and the enhancement of community resilience are highly aligned, both aiming to create a safe, livable, and healthy community environment, revitalize community vitality, and achieve sustainable development.Urban old communities commonly face multiple challenges in construction and governance, including disordered spatial organization due to outdated planning and design, aging risks caused by inadequate maintenance, rigid bureaucratic systems that hinder agile emergency response, inefficient governance resulting from weak operational mechanisms, and declining community vitality due to fragmented social capital. In response, this study proposes the following resilience enhancement strategies: rationalizing spatial layouts to improve organizational efficiency; upgrading infrastructure to enhance carrying capacity; fostering multi-stakeholder collaboration for co-governance; strengthening management implementation to boost emergency response capabilities; and consolidating social capital to advance diversified and resilient governance.