Liveability Indicator Evaluation and Optimised Development Strategies for National-Level New Areas: Evidence from Nanjing Jiangbei New Area

Rapid urbanisation in China has shifted the construction of new urban centres from economic expansion toward ecological integration. This study examines green construction in the Nanjing Jiangbei New Area (JNA), a national-level new area that combines a dense urban core with extensive rural townships, and sets out a framework of “top-level design–liveability indicators–demonstration projects–optimised evaluation” built on two evidence bases at different scales. An area-wide assessment scores 1169 residential communities on 30 indicators against 6711 facilities: 23 indicators count facilities inside their normative service radius, and the other seven, prescribed by the standard as life-circle configuration items rather than by distance, count facilities inside the community life circle. The assessment locates the area’s binding service deficits; the township ranking is robust to alternative weights at both ends and in the urban–rural contrast, and rural ratios are reported as lower bounds. The second base examines the green building and municipal demonstration projects, which cluster in the 33.2 km2 core area by agglomeration rather than by design, and therefore show what is feasible without sampling the whole area. The two are complementary: the diagnosis locates the deficits, and the demonstrations supply transferable pathways whose extension is conditional. The framework is a decision-support logic system, validated in direction rather than in magnitude, for the JNA and for other national-level new areas.