Usually, in planning, focusing solely on economic aspects, failing to pay attention to long-term plans, relying on superficial development plans, etc., has led to the neglect of global and national political, economic, socio-cultural developments that can help reconstruct rural spaces. Failure to predict these developments and failure to take the necessary measures to reduce their negative impacts have added to the challenges in villages. This issue highlights the need for a comprehensive and sustainable approach in rural planning more than ever. A sustainable strategy is a strategy that remains effective despite obstacles, surprises, and unforeseen errors. The aim of the present study is to develop sustainable strategies for the spatial development of rural settlements in Shahriar district with a foresight approach. This analytical-exploratory research was conducted using qualitative methodology. In order to identify the driving factors, forces, and uncertainties, observation, semi-structured interviews, and group discussions were used. The data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti (for coding), MicMac (for prioritizing and scoring the driving factors and analyzing the interactions between these factors), and Scenario Wizard (for designing scenarios). Based on the findings based on the drivers, three scenarios of sustainable, fragile, and unsustainable spatial development can be envisioned for the future of rural settlements in Shahriar district. Based on the presented scenarios, strategies for optimizing the exploitation of natural-ecological resources in accordance with the ecosystem services of the metropolitan space, creating a platform for optimal population distribution in the spatial area, organizing the business space in the metropolitan space, developing sectoral and inter-sectoral links at the regional, national, and global levels, organizing the land use system of the metropolitan space, developing hard and soft infrastructure in the metropolitan space, reforming and developing a decentralized, multi-centered spatial organization in the metropolitan space, integrated territorial governance of the metropolitan space, and reforming and developing legal-institutional structures in the metropolitan space have been proposed, which can be implemented in different conditions.