The impact of transformation policies on the resilience of mining resource-based cities

Abstract

Problems like a lack of diverse industries, environmental degradation and major social risks can lead to low resilience in resource-based cities.As part of a broader strategy to achieve high quality development, it therefore remains imperative to objectively assess the effects of transformation policies on the resilience of these cities.This will help to minimize urban risks and fill gaps in policy making.Based on the panel data of 278 prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2020, this study proposed a two-way panel fixed-effects model using the PSM-DID method to examine the impact of the National Plan for Sustainable Development of Resource-based Cities(2013-2020) on urban resilience in promoting the transformation of resource-based cities.Through the present empirical analysis, we found that: the Plan does have a significant role to play in boosting urban resilience, but there is a policy lag; the mechanism analysis shows that the Plan raises urban resilience level mainly through optimizing industrial structure and improving housing conditions; the heterogeneity analysis shows that there are significant differences in the policy effects on different types of resource-based cities, among which declining resource-based cities exhibit the most significant improvement in their urban resilience.

Keywords

• mining resource-based cities
• transformation policies
• urban resilience
• policy evaluation
• psm-did