Based on Actor-Network Theory and employing a dynamic Qualitative Comparative Analysis, this study explores a mechanism and analytical framework for modern maritime city building and identifies the phases and pathways of that process. The findings show that,within the actor network of modern maritime city construction, the government occupies the central coordinating position.By setting phased “obligatory passage points,” it clarifies the common goals for all actors and, through translation mechanisms such as interest translation, enrolment and mobilization, aligns human actors (government, firms, research institutes) with non-human actors (ports, marine environments) into a dynamically linked organic network. The construction process generally exhibits the characteristic of goal-oriented multi-stage evolution. Pathway 1 is an “Economy & Finance—Science & Education—International Cooperation” configuration; Pathway 2 is a “Marine Industry—Science & Education—Environment-absent” configuration. Science and Education emerge as a necessary condition in both pathways, while Economy & Finance, International Cooperation, and Marine Industry serve as different supportive elements. Cities with different endowments display a clear pattern of pathway matching. Economically internationalized cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, leveraging their economic base and openness, predominantly rely on Path 1 and constitute the mainstream development model. Cities with strong marine-industry foundations—Qingdao, Fuzhou and Dalian—initially relied on Path 2 to achieve high construction levels.

Given that current regional division practices have shifted toward new forms based on industrial and supply chains, relevant studies remain focused on measuring disparities between producer services and manufacturing sectors, which restricts the optimization and updating of inter-city division policies. Taking 12 China’s urban agglomerations as research units and using supply chain data from listed companies (2009-2022), this paper unveils the spatial patterns of functional division within urban agglomerations from the perspective of upstream-downstream relationships and empirically examines its impact on economic performance. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, a decentralized upstream-downstream division significantly enhances the economic performance of urban agglomerations. This effect operates through the optimized allocation of supply chain factors derived from diversified cities participation and the expansion of borrowed market size. Secondly, related variety positively moderates the relationship between functional division and economic performance, indicating that urban agglomerations benefit more economically from inter-city relations among upstream and downstream companies within the same industrial sectors. Thirdly, the economic impact of functional division exhibits heterogeneity across urban agglomerations, with stronger effects observed in coastal and “optimization-upgrading” urban agglomerations compared to inland and “development-growth” urban agglomerations. This underscores the pivotal role of economic foundations and integration levels in shaping division outcomes. This study enriches the theoretical understanding of functional division from a relationship perspective and offers policy implications for regional integration within urban agglomerations.

Based on the theory of externalities, this study employs two-way fixed effects model and panel threshold model to empirically analyze panel data from 258 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2023, using the SARS epidemic, global financial crisis, and China-US trade friction as shock events. The findings reveal that technological diversification significantly enhances urban economic resilience, with a more pronounced effect during economic shocks. Technological innovation and industrial structure optimization serve as the primary mechanisms through which technological diversification improves economic resilience, while market size and information network development can further strengthen this effect. Extended analysis indicates that diversified technological structures contribute more to urban economic resilience in high-tech and medium-high-tech sectors, whereas specialized structures prove more effective in traditional technology domains. Eastern and central regions, as well as large, megacities, are more suited for a diversified structure, while western regions, along with small and medium-sized cities, benefit more from specialization. Additionally, the enhancement effect of technological diversification on urban economic resilience exhibits a threshold effect. These conclusions provides theoretical references and practical foundations for cities to formulate tailored technological development strategies according to their local conditions.

The industrial space reconfiguration guided by the policy can effectively alleviate the resource constraints of the supply side and provide structural support for the sustained growth of domestic demand, thus becoming the core driving force for enhancing economic resilience and forming a benign interaction mechanism of “ industrial undertaking-domestic demand activation-resilience improvement. ” The policy of undertaking industrial transfer demonstration area at the national level is regarded as a quasi-natural experiment. Based on the data of China’s cities from 2010 to 2023, the effect of this policy on urban economic resilience is evaluated by using the progressive difference-in-difference DID model.The study finds that the implementation of the national-level industrial transfer demonstration zone policy can significantly improve the level of urban economic resilience. Mechanism analysis shows that the policy can enhance urban economic resilience by increasing residents’ consumption, expanding corporate investment and enhancing the synergy between the two. Heterogeneity analysis shows that,the effect of industrial undertaking is highly dependent on the supporting capacity of the undertaking city. In cities with higher levels of infrastructure supporting, policy service supporting and industrial ecological supporting, the policy has a more obvious effect on the improvement of urban economic resilience. Based on this, the study puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to strengthen the domestic demand activation effect and continuously improve the urban economic resilience through the construction of high-quality industrial transfer demonstration areas.

Innovation in grassroots governance is an important part of promoting the modernization of the grassroots governance system and governance capacity. How to enhance the sustainability of grassroots governance innovation has become a core issue in grassroots governance research. Based on the theory of attention allocation, an analytical framework of “attention-driven - social participation - resource support” was constructed. Taking the typical cases of national grassroots governance innovation of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in 2021 as samples, the fsQCA method was adopted to conduct an empirical analysis of the influencing factors of whether grassroots governance innovation is sustainable. The research results show that officials’ attention and public support are the core conditions for the sustainability of grassroots governance innovation, no single condition can alone constitute a necessary condition for the sustainability of grassroots governance innovation. The various factors need to work in coordination and interaction to effectively promote the sustainability of innovation. The paths to the sustainability of governance innovation are respectively Party building-led type, government-society cooperation type, and resource support type. Only through the interaction of multiple factors can the sustainability of innovative behavior be achieved. The ternary dynamic coupling mechanism of attention-driven, social participation and resource support is the internal mechanism for the sustainable development of innovation. To promote the sustainable development of grassroots governance innovation, it is necessary to establish a long-term mechanism for “sustained attention”. Continue to strengthen the leading role of Party building and activate the endogenous driving force of “social participation”. Strengthen the foundation of innovation resources at the grassroots level; Strengthen the ternary dynamic coupling mechanism.

Promoting synergistic efficiency in pollution and carbon reduction is a crucial pathway to achieving the deep integration and harmonious alignment of the “Beautiful China” initiative with the “dual carbon” goals. From the perspective of marginal abatement costs, this study empirically examines the synergistic potential of pollution and carbon reduction of 275 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2022 leveraging duality theory within the DEA framework. Furthermore, it explores the evolution patterns, regional disparities, and driving mechanisms of these synergistic effects using the spatial Markov chain, Dagum Gini coefficient, and QAP methods. The findings are as follows: Synergistic governance of pollution and carbon reduction can simultaneously reduce the marginal abatement costs of air pollution and CO₂ in China. The synergistic effects are widespread across regions and cities, although challenges such as “pollution reduction impediments” and “carbon mitigation delays” persist. The synergistic effects of pollution and carbon reduction exhibit a relatively stable development trend, with phenomena such as “hierarchical lock-in” and spatial club convergence. Significant spatial disparities are observed, forming a “convex” interregional pattern characterized by “core leadership and peripheral catch-up”. Hyper-variable density and interregional disparities are the principal contributors to the persistent imbalance. Reducing regional disparities in carbon mitigation effects is the fundamental to promoting coordinated regional development in pollution and carbon reduction. The positive impacts of external factors, such as industrial structure, openness, population density, and economic development, on co-benefit disparities gradually diminish. Moreover, the intensity and direction of these driving factors vary across regions, reflecting pronounced regional heterogeneity.

The improvement of carbon emission efficiency is an inevitable choice for China to address global climate change and achieve the dual goals of environmental protection and economic development. This study adopts a mixed research method of difference-in-differences and qualitative comparative analysis. Firstly, using panel data from 279 cities from 2009 to 2021, The net policy effect of low-carbon city pilot policies on carbon emission efficiency is analyzed empirically using difference-in-differences. An analytical model is constructed from the perspective of policy tools, and qualitative comparative analysis is employed to explore the multidimensional pathways of these policies in improving carbon emission efficiency. The findings show that low-carbon city pilot policies have significantly improved the carbon emission efficiency of the pilot cities,with per capita carbon emission efficiency having a greater effect than overall carbon emission efficiency. In terms of the dynamic effects of policies, the improvement of carbon emission efficiency by low-carbon city pilot policies is long-lasting, with continuously enhanced policy implementation effects. However, at the same time, there is also a certain degree of volatility, and the impact of pilot policies on carbon emission efficiency exhibits an inverted U-shaped trend. In the process of improving carbon emission efficiency, low-carbon city pilot policies adopt diversified policy tools, including command-control, economic incentives, and publicity and guidance. Different types of policy tools have different effects: industrial restructuring is the fundamental tool for improving carbon emission efficiency under low-carbon pilot policies; the carbon rights market trading mechanism has a cumulative effect on improving carbon emission efficiency under low-carbon pilot policies; the combined effects of various types of policy tools are the main mechanism for improving carbon emission efficiency under low-carbon city pilot policies, and there are three modes of regulation on the path of improvement: authoritative regulation, public regulation, and multi-stakeholder collaborative regulation.

In response to the policy trends and practical needs of mega-cities in preventing and mitigating disaster risks, this study employs John Holland’s Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory to investigate the generative mechanisms and governance practices of disaster resilience in mega-cities. Using a three-stage framework of self-construction, self-evaluation, and self-optimization, it analyzes how adaptive agents within cities develop disaster response mechanisms. Research reveals that mega-cities constitute complex systems formed by massive aggregations of urban adaptive agents, with their disaster resilience arising from the continuous optimization and emergent properties of micro-level agents' disaster response rules. Current governance models face challenges including amplified risk multiplier effects, macro-planning overlooking grassroots agency, and an overemphasis on "hard resilience" at the expense of "soft resilience". Thus, accelerating a shift toward adaptive agent-centered governance is essential to enhance comprehensive disaster resilience efficacy in mega-cities. Specific recommendations include: accelerating conceptual shifts to activate the proactive roles of micro-level agents, accelerating institutional innovation to establish dynamically evolving governance frameworks, and accelerating technological transformation to build multi-tiered, multi-agent collaborative systems.

As the core driving force of a new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, the digital economy is profoundly reshaping traditional economic structures and modes of social development. It not only promotes high-quality economic growth but also provides new pathways and momentum for achieving common prosperity.Using the Difference-in-Differences (DID) method, this study systematically examines the causal effects and mechanisms of digital economy and common prosperity based on balanced panel data from 286 cities in China during the period from 2011 to 2021.The research findings indicate that the digital economy is an indispensable driving engine for advancing common prosperity, playing a fundamental, structural, and strategic role. However, risks such as the digital divide and platform monopolies warrant close attention. Based on these findings, targeted policy recommendations are proposed: Expanding digital infrastructure to less developed areas can promote balanced regional development and help the eastern, central, and western regions share the benefits of growth; The inclusive growth characteristics of the digital economy can help narrow income disparities; Institutional development and digital governance capabilities need to be strengthened; A better integration of an effective market and an enabling government should be pursued.