In comparison to traditional villages 200 years ago, modern German villages have changed a lot in appearance, social and economic structure, infrastructure, self-government or autonomy, and lifestyle. However, traditions such as the commitment to the village community, cooperation, mutual assistance, and closeness to nature are preserved. In order to reduce imbalances between regions, a paradigm shift took place in the spatial development planning in the last twenty years: the centralized, standardized concepts that are dictated “from top to bottom” have changed towards endogenous or regionally adapted development. Country and city are of equal importance for the state as a whole and for society. They are dependent on each other and build a community of interests and responsibilities. The balanced coexistence of city and country is still a high national objective in Germany.

The endogenous development of rural areas in Germany aims to enhance the quality of rural spaces, improve the quality of local life, and reduce land consumption. In this way, Germany ensures the sustainability of rural development. This paper introduces the reconstruction of the multiple functions of the rural areas in Germany in the 21st Century, and analyzes the background, legal framework, regulatory tools and promotion projects of endogenous development. On the basis of the German experiences, this paper finally puts forward enlightenments to China’s rural development.

The discussion about equivalent living conditions in Germany is booming. With its model of territorial justice, Bavaria has set an ethically sound scientific model, particularly for strengthening threatened rural areas. Now it will depend on whether the pledge is followed by coherent and objectively assessable actions, in order to give people better chances for a good life in the countryside, which generates desire to live in these areas instead of frustration and rural exodus. This way, policy would comply with the deeply rooted human needs for security and feeling of safety provided by spaces for slowing down and resilience in times of disruptive changes. Rural land management becomes a means for development of social potential.

Scientific assessment of rural vitality and identification of rural development problems are of great significance to implement Rural Revitalization Strategy, to improve national governance system and to optimize territory spatial layout. The new rural vitality assessment tool“Vitalit?ts-Check zur Innenentwicklung für D?rfer und Gemeinden”(Vitalit?ts-Check)launched by the rural development authority of Bavaria Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry in Germany, aims to provide a basis for local governments and planners to formulate forward-looking strategies for village renewal, rural community development and cross-border regional community connection based on a comprehensive and objective assessment. This paper analyzes the new trends of rural development in Bavaria as the background to propose Vitalit?ts-Check, introduces the task, assessment area, identification of endogenous development potential, assessment indicators and expression of the analysis results. Application performance is reviewed with case study of Intermunicipal Alliance “Oberes Werntal” and the experience of Vitalit?ts-Check in Bavaria is summarized to put forward enlightenments to China’s rural vitality evaluation and activation strategies.

Cultural approach has been gradually applied to urban regeneration practices. Western scholars identified the progressive, creative and entrepreneurial cultural strategies in urban regeneration, and summarized four aspects of characteristics. Through a review of western literatures, this paper expands the characteristics of cultural strategies into seven aspects, namely, architectural type, potential value, goals, main stakeholders, target audience, type of cultural programs and facilities, and cultural activities. Focusing on cases in London and Sydney, the author summarizes the main characteristics of three cultural development strategies, in attempting to enrich existing literature and provide a reference to the urban regeneration practices in China.

Urban life in recent years has turned to be more sedentary, which has caused the pressing issue of public’s subhealth. It has been proved that urban green space (UGS) can contribute to the improvement of public health. Thus, themes related to the relationship between UGS and public health has recently become the research focuses in the field of healthy cities. Generally, these themes can be grouped into three aspects which are the health benefits from UGS, the factors that may affect these benefits, and the underlying mechanisms that generate these benefits. In this sense, this paper organizes the reviews and comments in three dimensions accordingly. The extant research displays that three categories of impact factors contribute to the health benefits, namely the availability, the accessibility and the self-features of UGS; and the underlying mechanisms work through cultural ecosystem services, regulating ecosystem services and supporting ecosystem services. In addition, different moderators, such as socio-economic status and demographic characteristics, can also exert their impacts. However, the complete interaction pathways between UGS and public health have almost not been explored. Moreover, the indicators, data, analysis methods as well as spatial analysis unit used by those published works are still limited, which need to be solved by new multiple-data sources and analysis techniques. Regarding these issues, in the end we propose seven research dimensions on the relationship between UGS and public health that entail much deeper explorations and more applicable conclusions in the field of urban planning.

Since the WHO launched the call for healthy community in 1986, the cause has gradually developed and spread out to the Western countries, Japan, Singapore, China, and many other countries. This paper analyzes the mapping knowledge domain of health community research with the help of CiteSpace. The study finds that the healthy community research is mainly conducted in the United States, Canada, Australia and China. The research area generally covers people’s roles and feelings, environment and nature, social roles, healthy cities and healthy communities, as well as community parks and aging. This type of research has experienced an evolution in terms of its primary focus: the integration of physical environment—mental health—philosophy, economics, sociology and other disciplines—community self-adjustment (community resilience). Combining the domestic and international authoritative standards with the actual circumstances in China, this paper summarizes the connotation of healthy community and proposed six dimensions of healthy community construction, including healthy housing, healthy environment, healthy transportation, health facilities, healthy activities, and healthy society.

Collective housing is a good way to alleviate the rising house prices, improve the housing security system, mitigate the social conflicts caused by residential segregation and create a harmonious society. The paper analyzes the emergence and development of the collective housing in the western developed countries, summarizes the progress of research from the definition of collective housing, efficiency evaluation, social influence, architecture and design, and provides suggestions on how to develop collective housing in China.