The Differential Promoting Effect of Urban–Rural Integration Development on Common Prosperity: A Case Study from Guangdong, China

Under the background that urban–rural integrated development continuously deepens and the common prosperity goal continuously advances, systematically identifying the actual results of urban–rural integrated development and its influence mechanism on common prosperity holds important significance for understanding regional development differences and optimizing policy implementation paths. Based on land use data, NTL data, and POI facility data from 2013 to 2025, this study comprehensively employs spatial analysis and deep learning methods to conduct an empirical analysis on the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and coupling relationship of urban–rural integrated development and common prosperity levels from dimensions including urban–rural spatial form evolution, economic activity intensity, and public service facility diversity. The research results indicate that urban–rural integration significantly promotes urban spatial expansion and the improvement in overall economic activity levels during the study period, but the difference in development magnitude among different regions remains obvious. The common prosperity level generally presents a rising trend, but it highly concentrates in the Pearl River Delta and city–county center areas in space, and the promotion effect of urban–rural integration on common prosperity exhibits obvious characteristics of regional heterogeneity, stages, time lags, and diminishing marginal effects. This study considers that urban–rural integration does not inevitably and synchronously transform into an elevation in common prosperity levels. Combining regional development basis and structural conditions to optimize urban–rural integration development paths by region and by stage and to improve the realization quality of common prosperity possesses important practical reference value.