Key Planning Elements for Sustainable Revitalization in Traditional Villages: An Integrated Planning Perspective from Shandong, China

Abstract

Traditional village revitalization is not only a planning challenge but also a social-psychological one, because policy and spatial interventions ultimately depend on residents' support, cooperation, and maintenance behaviors. This study develops an integrated planning framework across environmental, cultural, economic, and social domains and examines how perceived planning elements relate to perceived sustainable revitalization in traditional villages in Shandong, China. Questionnaire data were analyzed using reliability/validity testing, factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression. Fourteen planning elements were positively associated with perceived revitalization outcomes, with spatial layout and landscape harmony, cultural continuity and cultural expression, economic diversification, and governance-related equity and participation emerging as consistent predictors. By linking policy-relevant planning elements to established mechanisms in environmental and social psychology, these associations indicate behavior-relevant pathways in which culturally grounded interventions may strengthen place-based attachment and identity, equity and participatory arrangements may foster trust and cooperative norms, and improvements in shared spaces may enhance collective efficacy and the perceived feasibility of collective action. The study provides an operational indicator set and psychologically informed implications for designing revitalization strategies that support sustained resident engagement and pro-community / pro-environmental intentions in rural sustainability transitions.