The Report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly points out the in-depth implementation of the regional coordinated development strategy and the new urbanization strategy, as well as the development of a regional economic layout and a territorial space system that complement each other's strengths and promote high-quality development. Regional changes in urban expansion scale, industrial transformation, population flow and other factors will have an important impact on the high-quality development of cities and the goal of governance modernization. In recent years, the thinking mode of scale expansion and resource accumulation under the paradigm of urban “growth-ism” has been constantly questioned. The phenomenon of local contraction under general growth brought about by the gradient aggregation of population under the effect of flowing space has aroused the research and attention of the practical and academic circles. Based on the interdisciplinary concepts of urban planning, regional economics and public management, and based on the theory of urban life development cycle, this paper attempts to explore the phenomenon of local contraction behind rapid spread in urban areas. First of all, based on the specific scenario and spatial field of urban development with Chinese characteristics, the paper summarizes the current phenomena from four dimensions of increment-stock, resource-capital, reality-expectation and administration-entity. Secondly, taking the inland cities and above in Guangdong Province as the research object, the paper tracks the urban development pattern and shrinkage problems within the region, and further explores the problems and the generation mechanism behind them. Finally, the paper puts forward some policy suggestions, such as shifting from “growth-ism” to “human-oriented regression”, paying attention to the changes of increment, stock and reduction planning and urban development elements, and exploring the urban goals of spreading-shrinking universal development compliance, high level promotion and top-level design for high-quality development.