In a context of a rapidly changing livability of towns and countryside, climate change and biodiversity decrease, this paper introduces a landscape-based planning approach to regional spatial policy challenges allowing a regime shift towards a future land system resilient to external pressures. The concept of nature-based solutions and transition theory are combined in this approach, in which co-created normative future visions serve as boundary concepts.

A number of severe ecological problems, and the altered structure of urban spaces, are ascribed to rapid urbanisation. Hence, an analytical framework for urban spatial structure and functional optimisation is highly beneficial to balance the contradiction between developing urban areas and protecting their ecosystems. In this paper, the proposed analytical framework included three parts. We first delineated the ecological suitability zones (ESZs) of Beijing City by applying the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model.

Encountering the articulation of the strongness of local authorities and market forces in China’s development, attention has been paid to the changing central state which recentralised the regulation capability of localities which has more discretional power on resources utilisation, land for example, in the post-reform era. Yet it is still not clear-cut what drives the state rescaling in terms of land governance and by what ways. After dissecting the evolving policies and practices of construction land supply in China with the focus on the roles of state, we draw two main conclusions.