Capital plays a crucial role in driving rural sustainable development. Some rural areas have achieved revitalization through capital intervention, while others have experienced failure. It is possible that the purposes of capital intervention initiated by different parties (such as government, enterprises, and individual investors) in rural areas differ, which leads to the divergence of development routes and effectiveness. Yet, the questions of why and how this phenomenon occurs have not been well studied. Based on observation and an in-depth interview conducted in two suburban villages near Wuhan, we have established an analytical framework with which to compare the route and effectiveness of rural developments driven by capital intervention. The results are as follows: (1) The sources of capital and the embedded purposes determine the modes of rural resource reconfiguration and the arrangement of the relevant industrial sectors. The answer to the question of how to allocate capital gains among different interest groups engaged in rural development determines whether a community of shared interests with respect to sustainable rural development can be established and operate effectively. (2) As the profit-making process differs among capital originating from different sources, it is necessary to evaluate this process such that the pursuit of capital gains and its influence upon rural sustainable development can be clarified and coordinated. (3) Throughout the capital intervention process, villagers’ participation is crucial as it is the prerequisite for the establishment of a mutually beneficial win–win relationship between external capital investors and local villagers. This comparative study of the two villages can provide insights into policy formulation for the purpose of rural revitalization in China and other countries in the Global South undergoing rapid urbanization.

Understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of residents’ leisure travel distances (hereafter referred to as “RLTD”) and their underlying influencing factors is pivotal to reducing leisure travel costs and enhancing travel experiences. However, scholars have yet to identify leisure travel behavior and quantify RLTD accurately, and the nonlinear effects of the built environment on such distances remain underexplored. Therefore, this study, selecting Guangzhou as the case, employed multi-source data to measure RLTD and utilized a random forest model to explore the nonlinear relationship between the built environment and RLTD. Our findings are as follows. (1) Leisure activities among Guangzhou residents are dominated by short- and medium-distance travel (<10 km). Furthermore, RLTD exhibits significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity: on weekdays, it follows a zonal pattern where distances increase from the urban core to the periphery; conversely, on weekends, low-RLTD areas show a multi-center agglomeration pattern. (2) Proximity to central business districts (CBD) and large commercial centers, as well as optimal parking facility provision, emerge as the strongest predictors of RLTD on both weekdays and weekends. (3) All built environment variables exert nonlinear effects on RLTD, with distinct thresholds between weekdays and weekends. Additionally, a noticeable interaction effect is observed between the “distance to CBD” variable and other covariates. This study implies that when designing targeted interventions to promote residents’ leisure travel experience, policymakers should account for the temporal variations in how the built environment complexly influences RLTD.