Evolution and analysis of urban resilience and its influencing factors: a case study of Jiangsu Province, China

This research uses panel data of cities in Jiangsu from 2009 to 2018 to construct a resilience framework that measures the level of urban resilience. Evaluating 25 indicators, it covers ecology, economy, society, infrastructure, and community. As the urbanization rate of China’s population reached 63.9% by 2020, cities have become the main carriers of population and economic activities, and with this acceleration, China's urban development has shifted from large-scale expansion to high-quality development. The construction of resilient cities is an important manifestation of the high-quality development of cities, and it promotes their sustainable development.

The study finds that the spatial heterogeneity of regional resilience development is significant, as the overall level of resilience presents a spatial distribution pattern of descending from southern Jiangsu to central Jiangsu and to northern Jiangsu. In addition, there is a clear positive spatial correlation between urban resilience in the province and an obvious agglomeration trend of urban resilience levels. Among all subsystems, urban ecological resilience is the weakest and needs to be further improved.