Urban Resilience and Its Links to City Size: Evidence from the Yangtze River Economic Belt in China

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between city size and resilience is crucial for informed decisions on preparedness and interventions in building resilient cities. This study addresses this issue by dividing urban resilience into four components: stability, redundancy, resourcefulness, and connectivity. Using the above evaluation framework, we assessed the spatial–temporal variations in the relationship between city size and resilience in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2005 to 2020. The findings shows that, overall, resilience increased in the cities, with larger populations and spatial scales showing greater resilience, but both megacities and small cities experienced a decline in resilience. In terms of the four components of resilience, most of the region’s cities have roughly equal connectivity and stability, but redundancy and resourcefulness vary by city size and location. Specifically, downstream and larger cities demonstrated better crisis resolution and innovation. The dominant coupling coordination states showed antagonism between population and resilience. Upstream areas experienced a mismatch between “low resilience” and “large population”, while a moderate coordination existed between spatial scale and resilience. Further, it was found that factors hindering urban resilience varied according to city size. Cities with a population of <3 million faced low connectivity and limited transformation capacity. Those with a population of 3–5 million had moderate connectivity limitations, while cities with a population >5 million faced energy and aging population challenges. This study contributes to urban resilience discourse by providing a conceptual understanding and empirical analysis of the impact of city size on resilience.