Spatiotemporal Evolution and Convergence Analysis of Urban Economic Resilience in China-A Case Study of Jiangsu Province

Increased external uncertainties and growing tensions within the urban economic system pose new challenges to the urban economy. How to improve the quality of urban economic development and enhance the resilience of urban economies has become a new goal for sustainable urban development. Therefore, taking Jiangsu Province as an example, this study aims to explore the evolutionary trend of urban economic resilience and provide valuable references for cultivating and enhancing urban economic resilience. Initially, a system of indicators is established based on three dimensions: resistance, adaptability, and resilience. Then, combined with the entropy method, coefficient of variation method, kernel density method, natural break-point method, and Theil index, the spatial and temporal differences of economic elasticity of 13 cities in Jiangsu Province from 2006 to 2021 are analyzed. Finally, exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial convergence models are applied to investigate the spatial correlation and convergence of urban economic resilience. The results show an upward trend in the economic resilience of the cities in Jiangsu Province, but with significant regional differences and agglomeration. A downward trend in the level of economic resilience is observed from Southern Jiangsu to Northern Jiangsu. The spatial convergence model suggests that the economic resilience growth of cities will gradually converge to the same stable level, and the regional differences have a trend of reduction. In the future, the Jiangsu region needs to strengthen regional cooperation, enhance the role of the central city to drive, and continuously improve the economic resilience of the city to promote high-quality economic development.