Abstract：Chinese cities are entering a period of transformative development, and Shenyang faces common challenges
encountered by many cities: population and economic growth lagging behind land supply, insufficient urban
development momentum, and urban expansion caused decline of central urban areas. Urban renewal is one of the
pathways to facilitate urban development. The critical task for Shenyang’s urban renewal is to guide the incremental
growth of the city’s population and industries, integrate the renewal of existing spaces, and form dynamic areas of urban
growth. Simultaneously, it is essential to improve public services and urban environments to promote long-term urban
growth. Therefore, this paper conducts a comparative identification of Shenyang’s urban development characteristics
and renewal needs, explores the functional and spatial renewal strategies based on a two-level spatial structure of urban
renewal “districts—units”, and analyzes the economic feasibility of these renewal strategies. The goal is to achieve
urban renewal that constrains scale expansion, enhances spatial efficiency, and reshapes the central areas, thereby
supporting transformation of Shenyang as an old industrial city in Northeast China.
