A Critical Discussion of Sustainable Assessment Methods as Applied to Communities with Dual Urban-Rural Characteristics: Case studies of two villages in Southwest China

Rural revitalisation in China has led to new village developments that incorporated more and more dual urban-rural characteristics. Increasingly young villagers move to cities to work and villages have been developed as attractions that draw people from cities as visitors or new residents. A range of frameworks and assessment methods have been developed to guide the new rural or urban developments and evaluate the performance. However rigid regulations and building codes may not be flexible enough to assess complex situations brought about by the mobility of people, materials, sources and transportation between urban and rural areas. By using the concepts of the interface between the urban and the rural, this paper analyses two case studies in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. This project is to consider how the study of development of two villages can bridge the gap that frequently exists between research on urban and rural studies. In this it also compares the sustainability codes for urban and rural areas in Yunnan province to help identify missing and conflicting aspects if the sustainability codes were to be used for a mixed rural and urban area.