Urban-rural inequality has become a major challenge to sustainable regional development, yet ecosystem services (ES) have rarely been examined from the perspective of the urban-rural gradient. Using the Loess Plateau (LP) as a study area, this research developed an urban-rural classification system at the township scale based on administrative codes and assessed habitat quality (HQ), water yield (WY), carbon sequestration (CS), and soil conservation (SC) under three future scenarios (SSP126, SSP245, and SSP585) for 2030, 2050, and 2070 based on the InVEST model. Trade-offs and synergies among ES were further analyzed using the geographically weighted regression and the production possibility frontier framework. The results show that: (1) Cropland declined and urban land expanded under all scenarios, with the largest expansion occurring in mixed rural towns under SSP585. (2) The HQ and CS generally decreased, whereas WY was the most climate-sensitive service and SC showed strong scenario dependence. (3) Along the urban-rural gradient, urban towns consistently exhibited the lowest ES levels and the greatest ecological decline, with the proportion of declining HQ reaching 51.05% under SSP585. (4) Most ES pairs were dominated by synergies, especially HQ-CS, HQ-SC, WY-SC, and CS-SC, while tradeoffs were mainly concentrated in HQ-WY and WY-CS. These findings show that urbanization intensifies ecological inequality along the urban-rural gradient, with urban towns and mixed transitional areas facing the greatest pressure. This study provides a spatially explicit basis for differentiated ecological protection and land-use management in ecologically fragile regions.