Multiple urban resilience evaluation of resource-based cities’ sustainable transformation effect

Improving urban resilience is a key goal in the transformation of resource-based cities. This study examines the impact of sustainable development transitions in resource-based cities on urban ecology, economy, infrastructure, and social resilience. We measure the resilience of 285 prefecture-level cities in China by using the entropy weight method. In particular, we estimate the transformation effects of 121 resource-based cities from multiple resilience perspectives. The main empirical results show that all sub-resilience shows an obvious upward trend. Moreover, the economic, social, and infrastructure resilience have a spatial aggregation effect. Transitions towards sustainable development can make significant positive contributions to ecological resilience in resource-based cities, but it can also negatively impact social resilience. Therefore, governments need to address the social issues that can arise during transitions. This study provides a theoretical basis to inform government policy adjustments.