Since the end of the twentieth century，the demographics，climatic conditions，and technological level of cities have changed significantly，and these changes have profoundly influenced the direction of urban development. Recently，crises such as the recession，the New Crown epidemic，and the war in Ukraine have rekindled domestic and international scholars’ thinking about the nature of urban development. Some scholars have put forward theories such as inclusive growth，well-being economy，community wealth building，donut economics and basic economy，which go beyond the traditional thinking of using GDP as an indicator to measure urban development and focus more on the social and ecological sustainability of urban development. These theories have provided lessons and inspiration for the evaluation and practice of urban development in China，such as focusing on social and ecological development instead of GDP；adapting to local conditions，with different emphasis on urban evaluation in different regions；cooperating and coexisting and using city clusters as a vehicle to promote urban development；and combining multiple elements to improve the urban evaluation system.