Purpose: This study explores university city regeneration as a key pathway for promoting regional economic growth and social development. It develops an encyclopedic knowledge base on university city regeneration and systematically examines conflicts and resistance emerging from university–community spatial relationships across social, environmental, and economic dimensions. Based on this analysis, the study proposes spatial strategies to address conflicts and resistance in university city development. Method: This study adopts an evidence-based inductive analytical approach. By reviewing 55 university city regeneration projects implemented among the top 100 universities in Asia to promote regional economic revitalization, it identifies social, environmental, and economic conflicts and resistance emerging in different spatial contexts, analyzes their causes, and proposes corresponding spatial strategies. Result: The study finds that conflicts and resistance in university city development stem not only from social tensions between universities and adjacent communities but are also closely linked to structural mismatches in resource allocation and financial support. When negotiations stagnate, university campuses emerge as strategic sites. The study further proposes five categories of spatial strategies, in which the adaptive reuse of idle spaces and interventions in digital space offer alternative pathways to alleviate conflicts and resistance in university city development at the spatial level, providing practical guidance for promoting equitable resource allocation and supporting the sustainable regeneration of university cities.