During the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, China’s urbanization is decisively entering a critical stage of “quality enhancement of stock space,” rendering the governance of brownfi eld clusters in resource-exhausted cities a core challenge for urban and rural renewal. However, existing research remains heavily confi ned to a static and fragmented perspective that “prioritizes spatial patterns over material metabolism,” while overlooking the coupling mechanism between core substance fl ows and urban spatial evolution, making it diffi cult to support targeted, long-term planning. To address these limitations, this study innovatively integrates substance fl ow analysis into built environment research. Adopting a full life-cycle perspective of iron fl ows, it establishes a three-dimensional deconstruction framework comprising “spatial morphology, location layout, and environmental risk” to systematically classify iron-resource brownfi elds into seven categories. Through spatial overlay analysis, the study deepens the understanding of the spatiotemporal evolution dynamics of the “fl ow-city-brownfi eld” coupling driven by iron fl ows. Relying on empirical evidence from Huangshi, Xinyu, and Shaoguan, it extracts three typical spatial evolution models—skeleton-type, core-type, and independent-type—thereby elucidating the global evolutionary mechanisms of brownfi eld cluster formation and development. Finally, a precise regeneration strategy framework is formulated across three dimensions: “goal value anchoring, spatial system integration, and sequencing implementation synergy.” This research off ers an interdisciplinary theoretical framework and scientific decision support for stock space revitalization, ecological bedrock reshaping, and high-quality sustainable transformation in resource-exhausted cities.