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. A combination of the entropy method, Theil index, [Formula: see text] , and the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) is used to explore regional resilience development differences, the spatial correlation characteristics of urban resilience, and its influencing factors. The study finds that: (1) 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. (2) The total Theil index shows a wave-like downward trend during the study period. The differences between southern Jiangsu, central Jiangsu, and northern Jiangsu make up the main reason for the overall difference of urban resilience in Jiangsu Province. Among the three regions, the gap in resilience development level within southern Jiangsu is the largest. (3) 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. (4) Lastly, among the five factors affecting urban resilience, general public fiscal expenditure/GDP, which characterizes government factors, has the largest positive impact on urban resilience, while foreign trade has a negative impact. In the following studies, the theme of urban resilience should be constantly deepened, and more extensive data monitoring should be carried out for the urban system to improve the diversity of data sources, so as to assess urban resilience more accurately. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11069-022-05368-x.