Spatiotemporal Evolution of Urban Shrinkage and Its Impact on Urban Resilience in Three Provinces of Northeast China

Abstract

Currently, Chinese cities are experiencing both overall growth and localized shrinkage. Therefore, it becomes crucial to quantify urban shrinkage and explore the transformation and sustainable development of shrinking cities from the perspective of urban resilience. This study focuses on the three provinces of Northeast China, which are representative areas of urban shrinkage, as its research subjects. Employing the analytic hierarchy process, a comprehensive evaluation system for urban shrinkage is constructed based on three dimensions: population, economy, and space. Furthermore, urban resilience is scientifically measured from four aspects: economy, society, ecology, and infrastructure. The study analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of urban shrinkage and urban resilience in the three northeastern provinces from 2012 to 2018. It also examines the impact of urban shrinkage on urban resilience through regression analysis and mediation models. The results indicate the following: (1) Half of the cities in the three northeastern provinces experienced shrinkage, although the extent of shrinkage decreased with the implementation of the Northeast China revitalization strategy. Population-related shrinkage was the most extensive and continued to expand, while economy-related shrinkage was the most severe, and space-related shrinkage was the least severe. (2) The resilience of shrinking cities was lower than the average level. Population-shrinking cities and economy-shrinking cities exhibited low levels of economic resilience, and the gap between them continued to widen. Space-shrinking cities generally had low infrastructure resilience. (3) The urban shrinkage index had a significant positive impact on the urban resilience index, mediated through intermediary variables, such as innovation capability and cultural development. Notably, both the direct and indirect effects of innovation capability were the greatest. Population-related shrinkage had the largest impact on urban resilience, while more intermediary variables of economy-related shrinkage passed the significance test.