Empirical Research on Collaborative Governance Performance of Urban–Rural Integrated Development in the Yangtze River Delta Region

The pronounced urban–rural dualistic structure in China has given rise to the imperative for urban–rural integrated development. Coordinating urban and rural development and promoting urban–rural integrated development are pivotal to China’s new-type urbanization, rural revitalization, and the advancement of common prosperity in the new era. Meanwhile, collaborative governance issues arising in the process of urban–rural integrated development have emerged as a significant research perspective. This study takes the Yangtze River Delta region as its research area and employs structural equation modeling to conduct an empirical investigation into the collaborative governance performance of urban–rural integrated development. Results implied that, public participation, participation of non-governmental organizations, policy-planning capacity, government information disclosure and policy implementation capacity, exert significant effects on collaborative governance performance; the hypothesized significant effect of monitoring and evaluation is not confirmed. Based on the empirical findings, this study analyzes the various influencing pathways and proposes corresponding policy recommendations for collaborative governance practices in urban–rural integrated development within the Yangtze River Delta region.