Introduction

This introduction provides the background and the rationale behind the proposed book. It explains the reasons for the International Symposium jointly held at University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney and Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) Suzhou in October 2022 and for the research project co-sponsored by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations. The chapter outlines a succinct but comprehensive summary of the Australian and Chinese recent urbanisation and their approaches on the themes related to urban regeneration and rural revitalisation as explored in the papers introduced at the symposium. This part introduces the various essays in the book and explains how the relevance of multiple yet complementary themes and perspectives helps to shed light on several peculiarities of the up-to-date status of art of urban development and rural revitalisation and regeneration practices in Australia and China.