Enhancing Regional Development in Georgia: Integrating Functional Spatial Planning and Land Use Modeling for Sustainable Economic Growth

With the outbreak of the global public health crisis in 2019, enhancing the resilience of regional economies has become the current focal point. Existing studies have mostly focused on the region itself, lacking exploration of regional economic resilience from the aspects of dynamics, multiple perspectives, and multidimensional integration. At the same time, the digital industry, as an emerging sector, should not only consider its impact on economic development itself, but also focus on whether it can continuously and effectively enhance the level of regional economic resilience, in order to cope with crises that may arise at any time. Therefore, through empirical methods, we conducted a detailed study of the spatial correlation and internal driving factors between the digital industry and regional economic resilience, aiming to build a more valuable theoretical framework based on existing research findings and explore a regional resilience development strategy centered around the digital industry. This paper, combining conclusions and methods from existing literature, attempts to expand the definition of regional economic resilience, evaluation index system, and the relationship with the digital industry from the perspective of evolutionary economic geography. This article empirically examines data from 30 provinces in China from 2014 to 2022 (excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan due to lack of data). Firstly, this paper employs a two-way fixed effects model to examine the direct relationship between digital industry development and regional economic resilience. The research results indicate that the development of the digital industry can effectively enhance regional economic resilience. Secondly, the role of spatial location, as an important aspect of evolutionary economic geography, is also considered in this paper. The spatial Durbin model is used to discover spatial spillover effects of digital industry development on regional economic resilience under different spatial location relationships. Finally, this paper considers environmental regulations as a threshold variable to study the impact of the digital industry on regional economic resilience under different levels of environmental regulation. The results indicate that when the degree of environmental regulation is less than 0.0011, the digital industry can more effectively empower the enhancement of regional economic resilience levels. In conclusion, this paper finds that while emphasizing the role of the digital industry in the resilient development of regional economies, it is also essential to promote regional cooperation for mutual benefit and win-win results. This will accelerate the transformation of digital enterprises, optimize industrial structures, and achieve green development.

With the development of the economy, various economic shocks are arising, and the resilience of the regional economy has become an important consideration in the regional economic development. As big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies continue to combine with the financial industry to form financial technology, giving the development of the financial industry a new vitality, the impact of financial technology on the resilience of the regional economy should not be underestimated. By selecting the panel data of 210 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2019, this paper first conducts a theoretical analysis of the relationship between Financial Technology and regional economic resilience in China, quantifies the use of entropy law on financial technology and regional economic resilience, and then conducts an empirical analysis of the specific mechanism of financial technology affecting regional economic resilience and the factors that enhance the effect of financial technology on regional economic resilience. The main conclusions are as following: (1) During the sample period, financial technology has a significant role in promoting regional economic resilience, in addition, the scale of urban economy, government intervention and market size also have a significant role in promoting regional economic resilience, while the level of opening up to the outside world has a weak negative impact on regional economic resilience. (2) Fintech can promote regional economic resilience through the channel of industrial structure upgrading. (3) The innovation and entrepreneurship level index will positively adjust the effect of financial technology on the resilience of regional economies. Finally, based on this, this paper puts forward policy recommendations for better improving the resilience of regional economies.

Accordingly, research on regional economic resilience is still in an infant stage. Nevertheless, statistical reports and policies, in particular in countries severely hit by the “great recession”, already carry the label “resilience”. The range of possible directions indicated by the discourse on resilience is still wide. On the one hand, new forms of civil participation are realised in regional governance with stronger communities and new, revived or adjusted forms of social and economic interaction like sharing economies or developing self-sufficient communities. On the other hand, the focus on adaptability and constant awareness of change as a means of achieving resilience is seen as an additional stressor and further step towards social and economic segmentation and disparities. Against this background, the papers in this special issue take a look at current policies and policy debates from different perspectives and with various spatial foci. The aim is to understand: what is already happening in practice to foster regional economic resilience; what are common features in European regions despite differences in economic shocks, allocation of competencies among the spatial governmental levels and policy styles; how these observations fit to theoretical explanations; and which influence on regional economic policies might finally emerge from the focus on resilience. Several papers were developed based on research in a project funded by the European Spatial Observatory Network (ESPON) on “Economic crisis: resilience of regions (ECR 2)” illustrating the interest on the political level to look for experiences and approaches to integrate regional economic resilience as a strategic objective into regional policies on different spatial levels. The issue opens with two conceptual papers. The first paper by Rudiger Wink looks at current debates and open questions on regional economic resilience as a theoretical concept and strategic policy guideline. The author takes up Crises seem to be a familiar phenomenon nowadays. Terror attacks, natural catastrophes like floods, thunderstorms, tsunamis or landslides, technological breakdowns like the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster or increased awareness of the negative impact on human physical and mental health of various stress factors of modern life – in all cases, resilience as the capacity to avoid, withstand or adapt to crises has become a catchword to describe the capabilities to cope with negative shocks and adverse conditions. It comes as no surprise that resilience has also found its way into the discourse on regional economic development. The increased number of macroeconomic crises in many developed and emerging regions during the last two decades and, in particular, the “great recession” with its origin in banking failures and financial crisis has caused increasing interest in the potential causes of disparities in regions’ capacities to cope with these shocks. In 2010, the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economies and Society published a special issue on “The Resilient Region” to discuss the state of research on regional economic resilience. In 2013, Ron Martin and Peter Sunley, however, still stated in a discussion paper, which was also submitted to the Journal of Economic Geography (Martin/Sunley 2013: 3):

This work was supported by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia (SRNSFG) Grant number SP-232-1117, “Basics of research methods in medicine”.

Small and medium-sized businesses in Georgia have been the subject of extensive research for decades since the transition to a market economy. However, despite the huge number of studies, there is no clear definition of the term – small and medium-sized business. In addition to the comprehensive analysis of business subjects’ activities, this work offers a new, research-based definition of the term. Disruptions in the business operating cycle, force-majeure, crises and the cases of complete paralysis are the subject of our complex research, which frequently appears to be a variety of business cycle stress tests and represents valuable scientific material for future research. The Covid-19 pandemic has been and continues to be the most expensive, demanding and long-lasting stress test of contemporary world, which a huge number of business entities have struggled to overcome, and many of them are still grappling with this challenge. During and after the pandemic period, Georgian government, international organizations, financial institutions, public organizations and others played critical roles in ensuring the smooth business operations. The relevance of our research stems from this complex, diverse anti-crisis measures in various domains, as well as the study of approaches, being entirely based on empirical research using interdisciplinary methodology. The research was supported by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia, (SRNSFG) Grant number YS-22-548; project title –“The Crisis of Small and Medium Business Subjects and its Prevention in the Post-Pandemic Period in Georgia“.

It is widely acknowledged that Corporate Social Responsibility is a modern trend among big corporations who are taking responsibility for supporting the environment and improving social wellbeing. Majority of the Big Corporations try to follow this trend and implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a corporate governance and business model in their corporate structures and activities. CSR underlines the social role of Corporations and promotes their involvement in improving the working conditions of employees, ensuring safety regulations and improving the environmental protection measures. At the same time, this corporate governance model does not discourage corporations from profitable economic conduct but advocates them to support the community with strengthening the vulnerable groups of society, supporting small businesses, providing trainings, coordinating activities with non-commercial entities, etc. Although, if the CSR is a free choice generally for commercial entities, it becomes somehow ?mandatory? for State Shareholding enterprises. These are enterprises where state is holding all or majority of shares. As these corporations are owned by the state, and therefore, indirectly by the society, corporate social responsibility should be a mandatory corporate governance model for such companies. This will enhance their role in serving public. However, in many countries State Owned Enterprises (SOE) lack transparency and openness which affects their accountability level as well. With low level of transparency, it is difficult to define the social and environmental benefits implemented by the SOE. The aim of this speech will be to highlight the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility for State Owned Enterprises. At the same time, the speech will provide new understanding of CSR, with characterizing CSR as a governance model which includes the transparency, openness and higher accountability of the corporations before community. Emphasizing, that state corporations should serve public not only in a social and environmentally safe way but also in a responsible, open and accountable manner.This speech will be presented as part of the findings of the Scientific Project. This work was supported by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation (SRNSF) [Grant Number: #217878; Project Title: Legal Regulation, Challenges and Recommendations for Effective Corporate Governance System in State Shareholding Enterprises]. The speech will be presented by the Head of the Project - Davit Maisuradze.

Regional economic resilience is a prominent approach for studying global economic disruption and regional development. While few studies have comprehensively explored the role of agency in regional economic resilience, this paper examines the conceptual connections and offers supporting empirical insights from the Covid-19 pandemic in rural Tyrol, Austria. The study investigates the regionally entangled economic path evolution of tourism and agriculture development, provides insights on the impacts of the pandemic, and engages with different actors and agencies. Six distinctive types of reproductive and change agency are being identified, which pertain to the entrepreneurship of firms, the institutional efforts of government bodies, and the place-based leadership and maintenance work of regional associations. Especially the reproductive agencies enacted by different actors show to link to the regional ability to withstand and recover from the economic repercussions of the pandemic and highlight the importance of multi-scalar institutional environments in shaping resilience. Finally, the research articulates the need to advance the conceptual architecture of the agency and resilience framework concerning binary and static classifications of actors towards a more place-based understanding that accounts for heterogeneous and dynamically evolving actor constellations that matter particularly during shock events.

Chapter 1: Governance and Planning of Mega-City Regions: Diverse Processes and Reconstituted State Spaces Jiang Xu and Anthony G.O. Yeh Part I: Multi-Level Governance and Planning in Europe Chapter 2: The Polycentric Metropolis: a Western European Perspective on Mega-City Regions Sir Peter Hall Chapter 3: Innovations in Governance and Planning: Randstad Cooperation Willem Salet Chapter 4: Strategic Planning and Regional Governance in Europe: Recent Trends and Policy Responses Louis Albrechts Part II: Multi-Polity Governance and Planning in Federacy Chapter 5: Novel Spatial Formats: Megaregions and Global Cities Saskia Sassen Chapter 6: America 2050: Towards a Twenty-first Century National Infrastructure Investment Plan for the United States Robert D. Yaro Chapter 7: Mega-City Regional Cooperation in the United States and Western Europe: A Comparative Perspective Linda McCarthy Chapter 8: Regions of Cities: Metropolitan Governance and Planning in Australia John Abbott Chapter 9: The Upper Spencer Gulf Common Purpose Group: A Model of Intra - Regional Cooperation for Economic Development Jim Harvey and Brian Cheers Part III: State-Led Governance and Planning under Transition Chapter 10: Coordinating the Fragmented Mega-City Regions in China: State Reconstruction and Regional Strategic Planning Jiang Xu and Anthony G.O. Yeh Chapter 11: Spatial Planning for Urban Agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta Chaolin Gu, Taofang Yu, Xiaoming Zhang, Chun Wang, Min Zhang, Cheng Zhang and Lu Chen John Abbott is a practicing metropolitan planner in South East Queensland, Australia. He was previously the Project Coordinator of the SEQ 2001 and SEQ 2021 regional planning projects. He teaches planning theory and metropolitan planning at the University of Queensland. He has analyzed metropolitan planning processes in South East Queensland, Greater Vancouver, and New York using concepts of planning as managing uncertainty. Louis Albrechts is Professor of Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include strategic spatial planning, sustainable development, and regional design, and he has published widely on these issues. He is the founder and co-editor of European Planning Studies, a corresponding member of the German Academy for Research and Planning, and a member of the Advisory Board of the global Research Network on Human Settlements. Brain Cheers is Research Professor Emeritus of Community Development and former Director of the Center for Rural and Regional Development at the Whyalla Campus of the University of South Australia. He is also Founding Director of the Northern Australia Research Institute and the Center for Social and Welfare Research at James Cook University. He has published four books, and many monographs and papers on rural and regional issues. Lu Chen is PhD candidate in Economic Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Chaolin Gu is Professor, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. He has published sixteen books and over 260 articles on urban and regional planning, regional economics, and urban geography in China. He is the principal investigator of a number of projects on China's urban and regional development and planning. He is Vice President of the Chinese Geographical Association, and serves on editorial boards of many journals and academic councils. Sir Peter Hall is Bartlett Professor of Planning and Regeneration at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College London. He has received the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for distinction in research, and is an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, which awarded him its Gold Medal in 2003. He holds fourteen honorary doctorates from universities in the UK, Sweden, and Canada. He received the 2005 Balzan Prize for work on the Social and Cultural History of Cities since the Beginning of the 16th Century. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the European Academy and President of the Town and Country Planning Association. He was knighted in 1998 and in 2003 was named by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a Pioneer in the Life of the Nation at a reception in Buckingham Palace. Jim Harvey is Adjunct Professor of the Center for Rural Health and Community Development at the University of South Australia. His most recent publications have been on intra-regional cooperation in urban and regional development. He is currently the Australian Manager of an Australian Aid (AusAid) community development project in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua and New Guinea. Linda McCarthy is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is also a certified planner. Her research focuses on urban and regional economic development and planning in the United States, Western Europe, and China. Her publications comprise books, book chapters, reports, and articles in peer reviewed journals such as Environment and Planning A, The Professional Geographer, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Journal of Planning Education and Research, and Land Use Policy. Willem Salet is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. He is also the President of the Association of European Schools of Planning. His research specializes in spatial planning and metropolitan governance, urban networks, and decision making in strategic urban projects. He coordinated various research projects on behalf of the European Union, national ministries, the National Scientific Foundation, and other stakeholders in the field of urban studies, and has published widely on regional planning and governance. Saskia Sassen is Robert S.Lynd Professor of Sociology of Department of Sociology and Member of the Committee on Global Thought, at Columbia University. Her most recent books are Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton University Press 2006) and A Sociology of Globalization (W.W.Norton 2007). Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. Her comments have appeared in Guardian, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International, and Financial Times, among others. She serves on several editorial boards and is an advisor to several international bodies. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Cities, and chaired the Information Technology and International Cooperation Committee of the Social Science Research Council (USA). Chun Wang is an urban planner in the Master Planning Department at Beijing Tsinghua Urban Planning and Design Institute. Jiang Xu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Resource Management, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is a specialist in urban and regional issues, and is currently leading research projects in intercity competition and cooperation, as well as urban and regional governance in China. Dr. Xu has published widely on urban and regional development in leading international journals and is co-author with F. Wu and Anthony G.O. Yeh of Urban Development in Post Reform China: State, Market and Space (Routledge 2007). She was the recipient of the 2008 Research Output Prize of the University of Hong Kong. Robert Yaro is President of Regional Plan Association, America's oldest independent metropolitan policy, research, and advocacy group. He is also Professor of Practice in City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts. He co-chairs the Empire State Transportation Alliance and the Friends of Moynihan Station, and is Vice President of the Forum for Urban Design. He serves on Mayor Bloomberg's Sustainability Advisory Board, which helped prepare PlaNYC 2030, New York City's new long-range sustainability plan. Anthony Yeh is Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also Chair Professor and Head, Department of Urban Planning and Design, and Director, Center of Urban Studies and Urban Planning, University of Hong Kong. His main areas of specialization are in urban development and planning in Hong Kong and China, and the application ofaGIS in urban and regional planning. At present, he is Secretary-General of the Asian Planning Schools Association and Asia GIS Association. He is on the editorial boards of key international and Chinese journals, and has published over thirty books and monographs, and over 180 academic journal papers and book chapters. He received the 2008 UN-HABITAT Lecture Award for his outstanding and sustained contribution to research, thinking, and practice in the human settlements field. Taofang Yu is Lecturer, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. He has published four books and about fifty articles on urban competition and the mega city-region. Cheng Zhang, is a certified urban planner, and is performing civil service at the Nanjing Urban Planning Bureau. He has published five articles on the mega city-region and the mega-project. Min Zhang is Associate Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Nanjing University. She has published about 30 articles on urbanization, the megalopolis, and the global city-region. Xiaoming Zhang is PhD candidate, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. He has published about six articles on the mega city-region and spatial regionalization.

Regional Planning is also called Regional Development, but the conceptional difference between these two terms is not yet clear. This paper describes the concept of the region as the object of Regional Planning or Regional Development, followed by the entire framework of regional planning with the concept of planning itself.The concept of the region in Regional Science is based mainly on the concept as a method presenting region from a subjective view. However, the term region in Regional Planning is something existing on the limited surface of the earth which is a substantial concept itself. The author defines planning region, which is the object in regional planning, as follows: ‘Region is a substantial concept which means limited spatial sphere and its contents, that is, the whole of social, economic and physical phenomena produced by human activities in natural and cultural environments.’ Therefore, he proposes that ‘region’ should be defined as something ‘living’, which is formed by human beings.The concept of planning and development is also discussed in order to clarify the conceptional difference between Regional Planning and Regional Development. The concept of regional planning is grasped, in a broader sense, as an intentional impact of human beings for regional change. In a narrower sense, however, it is divided into regional planning and development. Specifically, regional planning means an ‘objective’ which motivates regional change, while regional development is grasped as a ‘means’ of the achievement of the purpose. Moreover, it is noticed that the term plan means not only ‘future programme’, but also ‘map’. Thus, regional plan expressed on the map has a special meanning.The fundamental framework of regional planning contents is presented as a result of the above discussion. This divides broadly into two categories, Activities Plan related to production activities such as industry and agriculture, living activities and public activities, and Resources Plan or Comprehensive Plan, namely environmental planning, spatial planning, population and social planning, economic planning and physical planning. The framework of each planning is relatively the same relationships between warp and woof. Resources Plan has a special significance for environmental conservation and it is expected to make a total balance among the usage of resources by activities. Thus, regional development should be executed only by being based on the developmental orientation, regional planning, which directs to environmentally sustainable development. Therefore, regional development approach or strategy as a combination of means based on planning is an important subject for us to study.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between state economic development incentives programs and entrepreneurial activity.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use panel data and a fixed-effects model to examine the determinants of five measures of entrepreneurial activity. To measure state economic development incentives programs, they use a new and substantially improved data set from Bartik (2017). They also include a measure for economic freedom, the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America index.FindingsThe authors find a robustly negative relationship between development incentives and patent activity. They find some evidence that incentives are negatively associated with small business establishments (<10 employees) as a percentage of total establishments but positively associated with the large business establishment (>500 employees) share. They also find evidence of a positive relationship between economic freedom and both patent activity and net business formation.Research limitations/implicationsThe results imply that economic development incentive programs are unlikely to increase entrepreneurial activity and may decrease it. They also imply increased economic freedom (lower taxes, lower spending, and lower governmental restrictions on labor markets) may increase entrepreneurial activity.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this paper provides the first examination of the relationship between development incentives and entrepreneurial activity that utilizes Bartik (2017), a new vastly improved data set of state economic development incentive programs. The paper also contributes to the literature on the relationship between economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity.

The paper analyses the planning framework for sustainable territorial and regional development. The spatial and environmental planning should play the key role in coordination and integration of different planning grounds in achieving the sustainable regional development. The paper discusses the spatial planning capacity to offer the integral view of the sustainable territorial development. The brief review of tendencies in new spatial planning and regional policy has been given. The focus is on the concept of balanced polycentric development of European Union. The guiding principles of spatial planning in regard of planning system reform in European countries have been pointed out. The changes in paradigm of regional policy, and the tasks of European regional spatial planning have been discussed. In Serbia problems occur in regard with the lack of coordinating sectoral planning with spatial and environmental planning. Partly the problem lies in the legal grounds, namely in non codification of laws and unregulated horizontal and vertical coordination at all levels of governance. The possibilities for the implementation of spatial planning principles and concepts of European Union sustainable territorial and regional development have been analyzed on the case of three regional spatial plans of eastern and southeastern regions in Serbia. The disadvantages in implementing the strategic environmental impact assessment as an instrument for coordination and integration of sectorial planning with spatial and environmental planning have been analyzed. The strategic environmental impact assessment has been implemented only in the spatial planning process. Through spatial planning process its feedback effect on sectorial planning has been indirectly achieved. The priority actions in Serbia for achieving the spatial and environmental planning role in coordination and integration of different planning grounds in sustainable regional development have been given.

The purpose of the study is to prove the need for development of innovative territorial clusters (ITC) in steppe regions. With a well-known determination of the factors of sustainable economic development of steppe regions of Russia, territorial planning and formation of environmental management structures were considered the most important. Today, the greatest relevance for steppe regions of Russia should be seen in development of the ITC as the most important condition for transition to a new technological order in the coming decades of the 21th century and a new management system based on improving scenario forecasting tools that allow identifying trends and incentives for sustainable economic development of steppe regions of Russia as a result of minimizing problems and strengthening their economic potential in the process of climate restructuring of the Earth. The results of the study include the following: definition of the ITC role as a tool for normalizing economic relations between research and educational organizations, business, development institutions and the state, as well as possibility of adapting the resulting cluster model of joint activity management to solving problems of sustainable economic development of steppe regions in the context of digital transformation of Russian economy. Innovative territorial approach should become the basis for Complex programs of ecological, economic and noospheric development of Russian regions. And there are all the prerequisites for this-rapid development of digital technologies, and along with it the growth and rapid promotion of digital innovations, without which there is no future, make this goal feasible and achievable. Therefore, it can be said that ITCs in steppe regions should serve as a source of digital innovations in Russian economy, creating new jobs for population, increasing viability of their territories and ensuring food security of the country as a whole.

Territorial cohesion – a not-so-new buzz word used at the EU level is electrifying the community of politicians as well as researchers involved in regional policy and spatial planning. Territorial cohesion received particular attention when it was recognised, first in the constitutional Treaty and then in the Reform Treaty of Lisbon, as a Community objective equal in importance to economic and social cohesion. Territorial cohesion is an objective and a concept which has gained supporters with a variety of interests and views.2 One of its advantages certainly is that the term allows for coverage of a wider range of concerns. However, in putting them all together contradictions are emerging which are becoming most apparent when trying to measure territorial cohesion and decide on policy action. Territorial cohesion is certainly not a regulatory policy, but instead a redistributive policy in the wider sense.3 And thus some kind of norms and the deviation from these norms, generally understood as disparities, in our case disparities with regards to territory, have to be defined indicating the need for policy action. E. g., in EU cohesion policy the economic and social cohesion is measured by disparities of regional GDP per capita.4 Territorial cohesion seems to be a more complex matter and there are demands for examples of a territorial cohesion index.5 Identifying indicators support the clarification of a concept; but just what scope of indicators should be used to justify policy action with regard to territorial cohesion is not clear.

The rapid expansion of high-speed rail (HSR) has significantly improved spatial accessibility and connectivity efficiency, and affected the reallocation of spatial resources and regional economic sustainability. This study examined 40 prefecture-level (or above) cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, and explored the evolution process of the HSR service network and its impact on the sustainability of economic development. The research results show that: (1) From the perspective of intercity travel time and service connections from 2009 to 2018, the rapid development of HSR has increased the city’s rail accessibility by about 50%, leading to closer intercity connections. (2) There are obvious regional differences in the effect of HSR on urban functional levels and the intensity of inter-city connections. Compared with 2009, the central cities play a greater role as transportation hubs in 2018, creating a significant Matthew effect of accumulated advantage. (3) The distribution pattern of regional urban intensity index is uneven, and the difference in urban intensity index in 2018 is significantly greater than that in 2009. (4) The evolution of the HSR network has significantly affected regional economic development, especially the development of tertiary industry, and increased the polarization of economic development in the YRD. This research can provide a certain reference for regional sustainable development.

Recognizing regional economic resilience and its influencing factors under different shocks is necessary to promote stable regional economic development. The article analyzes the regional economic resilience of 31 Chinese provinces under three kinds of shocks, namely, financial crisis, economic downturn, and COVID-19, in terms of the resistance of regional economies to shocks, and examines spatial distribution and main influencing factors. The results of the study found that: (1) The characteristics of regional economic resilience under different shocks are different. During the financial crisis, the strong resilient provinces are distributed in the central and western and northern regions; during the economic downturn, the strong resilient provinces are mainly distributed in the western and central regions; during COVID-19, the strong resilient provinces are mainly distributed in the western and eastern coastal regions. The economic resilience of each province shows significant “high-high” and “low-low” spatial clustering characteristics during the economic downturn and the COVID-19. (2) The main influencing factors of economic resilience in different shocks are different. In the financial crisis, the magnitude of the contribution of the influencing factor is leading industry (0.283) &gt; related diversity (0.197) &gt; foreign trade dependence (0.190); during the economic downturn, the magnitude of the contribution of the influencing factor is population density (0.464) &gt; leading industry (0.427) &gt; related diversity (0.285); the magnitude of the contribution of the impact factor during the COVID-19 was related diversity (0.282) &gt; unrelated diversity (0.274) &gt; leading industry (0.272). (3) In the interaction of impact factors, the strongest explanatory power is found in related diversity, unrelated diversity, and leading industries, which represent the industrial structure. Therefore, there is a need to adjust the industrial structure and improve the regional economic resilience from the shock itself.