This study investigates the synergistic effects between High-quality Urban Economic Development (HUED) and Integrated Urban–Rural Development (IURD) in Zhejiang Province (2014–2023). The research methodology incorporates the entropy weighting technique, the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, and the relative development evaluation model. The results show that: (1) The two systems exhibit asynchronous evolution—HUED shows a slight downward trend, whereas IURD increases by 35.94%. (2) The mean CCD rises from 0.596 to 0.633, indicating a transition to moderate coordination, with a distinct “high north, low south” spatial pattern. (3) The spatial integration subsystem shows the lowest coordination with urban economic development, representing a key structural constraint. (4) Ten coupling coordination types are identified, among which “moderate coordination with slight lag in economic quality” is the most dominant. Overall, Zhejiang’s urban–rural relationship faces dual constraints: insufficient spatial integration at the subsystem level and lagged high-quality economic development at the system level. Accordingly, targeted spatial optimization and place-based policies are proposed.
Zhang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.