To explore the latest advancements in urban resilience research, we propose a process-oriented conceptual framework and employ the PRISMA standardized systematic review method to analyze research themes and publication trends in leading international urban studies journals. Recent studies on urban resilience have primarily focused on four key urban subsystems: governance, material and energy flows, infrastructure and morphology, and socio-economic dynamics. Emerging research emphasizes diverse governance networks, urban metabolic cycles, sustainable infrastructure, and human-centered approaches. Looking ahead, future research should prioritize standardizing and locally adapting resilience assessment frameworks, integrating innovative data and methodologies, addressing the needs of vulnerable regions and marginalized groups, and aligning resilience-building efforts with the Sustainable Development Goals. Promoting global collaborative governance is also essential to advancing equitable, inclusive, and sustainable resilient cities.

Based on the panel data of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta from 2011 to 2020, using two-way fixed effects regression analysis, this paper empirically examined the impact and mechanism of the digital economy on the economic gap between central and peripheral cities. The results show that in the Yangtze River Delta region, the development of digital economy is conducive to narrowing the economic gap between central and peripheral cities. In this process, improving factor mismatch is an important path of action.The study shows that, overall, in the Yangtze River Delta, the development of the digital economy is conducive to narrowing the economic gap between central and peripheral cities. In this process, improving factor mismatch is an important path of action. The heterogeneity analysis results show that compared to cities with lower levels of industrial structure upgrading and human capital, the positive effect of digital economy on cities with higher levels of industrial structure upgrading and human capital is more significant. At the same time, the effect of digital economy on the pilot cities of “Broadband China” is significantly stronger than that of non-pilot cities. In addition, the results of the extended study show that the impact of digital economy on the economic gap between central and peripheral cities exhibits a significant inverted “U” shape. Further calculation of the inflection point shows that in the Yangtze River Delta, there are still some cities on the left side of the curve, with a lower level of digital economy development, which fails to positively reduce the economic gap between central and peripheral cities.Based on this, this study provides policy recommendations to strengthen the construction of digital infrastructure, continuously optimize the allocation mechanism of the factor market, actively promote the upgrading of industrial structure and improve the level of human capital.

This paper develops an analytical framework based on the collaborative governance theory, consisting of “collaborative prerequisite-collaborative process-collaborative result.” Taking the W community in Shenzhen as the case, the paper analyzes the collaborative supply mechanisms of community home-based elderly care in mega-cities. The study shows that the collaborative prerequisites include shared interest among multi-stakeholders, the external environment created by administrative and resource support, and the intrinsic endowment shaped by social capital and trust. The studied community has formed top-down and bottom-up collaborative processes through government empowerment, enablement and cultivation by social organization, and appropriate incentive structure for the volunteers. The collaborative supply has aggregated forces, effectively promoting the construction of multi-level elderly care system and the cultivation of social capital in the community. However, there are still some problems in collaborative supply’s efficiency, stability, and sustainability. By focusing on the issue of elderly care in mega-cities, this paper enriches the application scenarios of collaborative governance theory and provides new insight in innovating elderly care and addressing urban aging challenges.

Based on a systematic assessment of changes in external circumstances and their impact on Beijing, this article analyzes the key issues faced by Beijing in several key areas during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, including economic growth, technological innovation, population structure, and the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The article proposes strategies to enhance the diversity of economic growth drivers, improve the agglomeration capacity of resources in the plain areas and their contribution to overall economic growth, establish innovation alliances led by technology-driven enterprises, shift from population size regulation to the adjustment of population structure and distribution, deepen the integration of innovation and industrial chains in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and accelerate the development of new quality productive forces with the “Innovation Triangle” of Beijing-Tianjin-Xiong'an as the core.

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces and cities (except Tibet Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) from 2012 to 2021, an empirical study is conducted to investigate the carbon emission reduction effect of digital economy and its functioning mechanism. The results show that the digital economy and its sub-dimensions have significant carbon reduction effects, and the size of carbon reduction effects in the sub-dimensions is digital industrialization>infrastructure>industrial digitization>digital innovation. The upgrading of industrial structure has a mediating effect on carbon emission reduction in digital economy, and the upgrading of industrial structure also has a mediating effect on the indicators of each sub-dimension of digital economy. Government regulation plays a positive regulating role in the path of carbon emission reduction influenced by digital economy, which enhances the carbon emission reduction effect of digital economy. Therefore, promoting the development of the digital economy, improving infrastructure, strengthening the development of digital industrialization and industrial digitization, encouraging digital innovation, and promoting the upgrading of industrial structure, complemented by reasonable government regulation, is particularly important for curbing carbon emissions and achieving green low-carbon development and the “Dual-Carbon” goals.

The rapid development and widespread integration of digital technologies have profoundly changed the economic structure, becoming a key force in reshaping the national innovation landscape and empowering new productive forces. Based on the invention patent data for key digital technologies from 2014 to 2022 in China’s prefecture-level cities, this study classifies seven types of key digital technologies and quantitatively compares the digital technology integration capabilities of cities. It explores the process and mechanisms through which the integration of key digital technologies impacts technological breakthroughs in cities. The study finds that: firstly, eastern cities lead the country in digital technology integration capabilities, but in recent years, cities in the central and western regions (such as Wuhan, Chengdu, and Xi’an) have risen rapidly, breaking the previous pattern dominated by eastern cities, and the gap between regions has generally narrowed. Secondly, the degree of integration among digital technologies has deepened, with artificial intelligence playing a key role. Furthermore, the integration of digital and non-digital technologies (especially in the fields of chemistry and medicine) has significantly increased, with quantum information technology exhibiting the highest level of cross-disciplinary integration. Finally, the integration of all seven types of digital technologies has significantly promoted technological breakthroughs in cities, with the metaverse having the most pronounced effect. Mediation effect analysis shows that the integration of key digital technologies promotes technological breakthroughs in cities through knowledge related variety, unrelated variety.

Public welfare venture capital is an innovative means to cultivate social organizations and an important part of realizing the modernization of government governance. This paper constructs a “Resource-Organization-Environment (ROE)” analysis framework and uses qualitative comparative analysis method to explore the influencing factors and driving models of urban venture capital for public welfare. The study found that the linkage and coupling of technical support, capital investment, operation platform, communication and learning, policy support and social collaboration formed 7 conditions to promote venture capital for the public, reflected in 4 types of venture capital driving models for the public. That is, Resource-Organization two-dimensional driving model, Organization-Environment two-dimensional driving model, Resource-Organization-Environment three-dimensional joint driving model and Resource-Environment two-dimensional driving model. Among them, capital investment is the core condition of multiple condition configuration. The research conclusions are helpful to clarify the influencing factors and driving models of venture philanthropy, provide references for understanding the driving models of differentiated venture philanthropy in cities, and promote the overall development of venture philanthropy.

In the context of the global digitalization wave, the integration of digital economy and real economy has emerged as a vital engine for high-quality economic development and a critical pathway for promoting the green transformation of resource-based cities.Using panel data from 115 resource-based cities in China from 2013 to 2022, this paper employs a fixed-effects model to empirically examine the impact of the integration of digital economy and real economy on the green transformation of resource-based cities. Additionally, the TOE framework is introduced to analyze the underlying mechanisms. The study finds that the integration of digital economy and real economy significantly promotes the green transformation of resource-based cities. This impact manifests through technology-driven effects, organizational optimization effects, and environmental catalytic effects. Moreover, the impact of the integration of digital economy and real economy on green transformation exhibits significant heterogeneity, with a stronger promoting effect in declining cities, non-old industrial base cities, and non-environmentally focused cities, while the impact is not significant in growing cities. The conclusions of this study provide valuable insights for resource-based cities in overcoming the “resource curse” and achieving sustainable development.

Based on the multi-dimensional and multi-scale characteristics of technological innovation networks, this study constructs the technology cooperation and transfer networks of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) at both the bay area and national scales. It explores the structural characteristics and influencing factors of these networks. The findings reveal that the GBA’s technological innovation network exhibits a “dual-core, three-center, and multi-node” structure. At the bay area scale, technology cooperation is more closely interconnected, while at the national scale, technology transfer is more active and primarily focused on technology export. Multidimensional proximities among cities and disparities in economic and social development are critical factors influencing the GBA’s technological innovation network, although their impacts vary across scales and dimensions. Considering the functional levels and roles of cities within the innovation networks, this study proposes fostering an “olive-shaped” structure comprising “hub, center, potential, and edge” cities within the urban innovation function system. Furthermore, it discusses strategies to guide the innovation development of GBA cities, aiming to advance the construction of a regional collaborative innovation community.

In order to better guide the low-carbon development of different types of shrinking cities and supplement the existing carbon emission research gaps. The entropy method, GTWR model and other methods are utilized to explore the role of the shrinkage characterization factors of different types of shrinking cities in influencing the carbon emissions from land use and the differences in the influences, the main conclusions obtained are as follows. First,the diversion of built-up land is the main source of carbon emissions from land use in shrinking cities, and the reduction of forest land and grassland increases the pressure of carbon emissions. Secondly, carbon emissions of different types of shrinking cities show different patterns, among which resource-dependent and comprehensive cities declined after reaching the peak in 2010 and re-entered the growth state in 2015; carbon emissions of siphoning and location-constrained cities show a continuous growth trend. Finally, the significant shrinkage characterization factors of cities are also the main driving factors affecting urban carbon emissions, and the shrinkage phenomenon has changed from population to multi-dimensional contraction with the development of time, while the influence of the driving factor of carbon emissions in shrinking cities has shifted from the population dimension to the economic and investment dimensions.

Urban virtual agglomeration of digital industry is a new form of spatial organization of digital industry. This paper evaluates the current status of virtual agglomeration of digital industries in 284 cities from 2011 to 2021 using multi-source data such as digital enterprise big data, Baidu index, and online business transaction index, and examines the regional differences, dynamic evolution, and convergence of virtual agglomeration of digital industries with the help of Dagum’s Gini coefficient, kernel density estimation, the coefficient of variation method, and the spatial Durbin model. The study found that:First, the level of virtual agglomeration of digital industries in the country shows a steady increase in the development trend. Specifically,the concentration level is the highest in the eastern region,and decreases in the central and western regions. Second, in terms of regional differences, the intra-regional differences in the East and West are higher than the intra-regional differences in the Central and Northeast, and the inter-regional differences between the East and the Northeast are the largest, while those between the West and the Northeast are the smallest. The inter-regional differences are the main source of the overall differences in the virtual agglomeration of digital industries. Thirdly, the spatial polarisation of the virtual agglomeration of digital industries in the country and the four major regions is not prominent, and the distribution curve is shifted to the right, with a right-dragging tail. Fourthly, the country, the east, the west, and the northeast as a whole have the characteristic of α-convergence, and the central region does not have the characteristic of α-convergence, and the absolute spatial β-convergence and the spatial conditional β-convergence are both manifested in the country and the four major regions, and the convergence of β-convergence is not significant in the four major regions, and after considering the spatial conditional β-convergence is accelerated after considering spatial conditional β-convergence.

World class urban agglomerations are the highest spatial form of urbanization in the context of globalization, with high control and influence over the world economy and politics. They have become the main force for major powers to cultivate core global competitiveness and lead future global development and social change. This article defines the concept of world-class urban agglomerations based on the global urban system, conducts conceptual analysis and comparison with related similar concepts, and provides definition criteria based on existing research results. A theoretical framework for China’s world-class urban agglomerations was proposed from the perspective of integrating flow space and spatial analysis. Based on the definition criteria, an international comparison was made between the three major urban agglomerations in China’s Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, and Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and the five world-class urban agglomerations in the world from both spatial and flow space perspectives. Relevant characteristic facts were sorted out, and relevant issues and challenges were clarified. On this basis, several discussions were conducted on the construction path of China’s world-class urban agglomerations.

The low spatial performance of urban fringe caused by insufficient locational endowments has become a major limiting factor in the high-quality development of cities in the transition period. This article constructs a grid-based econometric model of spatial performance and locational conditions in urban fringe, identifies the impact of transportation, government affairs, and ecological locational factors on spatial performance through multi-scale geographically weighted regression, and conducts empirical research in four districts around Tianjin. The study found that: the spatial performance distribution of Tianjin urban fringe presents a “ring & multi-peak” distribution structure, with both discontinuous and transitional attributes, showing strong discontinuity in the near suburbs and strong transitional characteristics in the far suburbs; the insufficient economic output of suburban industrial parks and the lagging public service supply in rural areas are the main causes of low performance in Tianjin urban fringe; transportation locational factors have the strongest positive impact on the spatial performance of Tianjin urban fringe, followed by government affairs, while ecological locational factors exhibit a weak negative effect. The spatial heterogeneity influenced by location factors is highly significant, so it is necessary to formulate and optimize policies based on local conditions.

This paper takes the six inner districts of Tianjin from 2000 to 2020 as the empirical object, and combines multiple analytical methods such as factor ecological analysis, spatial statistics and clustering, correlation regression, semi-structured interviews, etc., to qualitatively and quantitatively reveal the structural coupling and functional coupling phenomena between the social spatial evolution and urban regeneration actions. Furthermore, this paper summarizes the mediating catalytic role of urban regeneration in the coupling process, and its social spatial impact achieved through micro-paths such as housing supply iteration, spatial quality improvement, functional value replacement, and social network reorganization. In general, this study is committed to improving the interactive response theory of urban social space and material space, and providing theoretical support for the spatial governance practice of “people-oriented and precise policy implementation” in China’s New Era.

Regarding the policy of innovative development demonstration cities for marine economy as a quasi-natural experiment, a difference-in-differences model is established to investigate the impact of innovative development policy on the marine economic resilience of coastal cities using panel data of 38 coastal prefecture level and above cities in China from 2006 to 2022. The empirical analysis shows that the policy of innovative development demonstration cities for marine economy has significantly improved the marine economic resilience of coastal cities. This conclusion still holds true after conducting a series of robustness tests such as parallel trend test, placebo test, truncated regression, PSM-DID test, and sample change. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effects are more pronounced in the northern marine economic circle, large city group, and high human capital group. Mechanism analysis shows that investment in technological innovation and the development of the digital economy can strengthen the enhancing effect of the policy of innovative development demonstration cities for marine economy on the marine economic resilience of coastal cities. Based on the above conclusions, countermeasures and suggestions are proposed to accelerate the formation of marine new quality productive forces through innovative development and continuously consolidate the marine economic resilience of coastal cities.

This paper develops an evaluation framework for urban-rural integration dynamics from two subsystems of both internal and external dynamics. Employing the BP neural network model, the research assesses urban-rural integration dynamics across 132 districts and counties in the Chengdu-Chongqing region. Based on the analysis, four distinct types of county urban-rural integration are identified: urban-rural oneness type, city-led rural type, rural-promoted city type, and contraction-reconstruction type, corresponding differentiated development paths are proposed for each type.The results reveal that, despite a higher level of urban-rural integration in the western Chengdu-Chongqing region, this advantage is not pronounced relative to the national context. Except for districts and counties adjacent to the Chengdu-Chongqing Metropolitan Area and along the Chengdu-Chongqing Central Axis intercity transportation corridor, the majority of districts and counties exhibit insufficient internal and external dynamics, with the contraction-reconstruction type being predominant. For urban-rural oneness counties, it is recommended to implement a strategy that emphasizes “functional complementarity and parity in living standards” to foster mutual development between urban and rural areas. For city-led rural counties, leveraging the “scale effect of urban areas to drive rural external development” is advised, focusing on “substituting industry for agriculture and facilitating urban-driven rural advancement.” The rural-promoted city counties should pursue a strategy of “agricultural upgrading and agriculture-driven industrial development” to stimulate urban enterprise growths through the agricultural value chain expansion. For contraction-reconstruction counties, the “optimal and sustainable development” approach is proposed to explore orderly rural reconstruction and ecological value transformation.

Against the backdrop of the restructuring of the global economic landscape, the promotion of blue economy co-operation has become an important force in promoting regional integration and development. Blue economy cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area and ASEAN countries has great potential and broad prospects. The thesis adopts gravity model and social network analysis to reveal the spatial correlation of blue economy cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area and ASEAN countries and its network structure, to analyse the marine industries with potential for cooperation and the pressure of transformation of the blue economy, and to explore the trend and path of cooperation between the Greater Bay Area and ASEAN in the field of blue economy. The study finds that the overall density of the blue economy network in the co-operation area is low, and more than two-thirds of the blue economy links still have large development potential; Thailand, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao and Indonesia are at the core of the blue economy network in the co-operation area, and are the ‘leaders’ in blue economy development in the co-operation area, while Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines and Cambodia are at the centre of the co-operation network, The Philippines and Cambodia are at the periphery of the co-operation network and are the ‘followers’ of the regional blue economy co-operation; the network strength of the nodes in the co-operation area varies greatly, indicating that the blue economy co-operation in the region is in an unbalanced state, and the degree of integration needs to be strengthened; at the same time, the results of cohesive subgroup analysis show that perfecting the co-operation mechanism and building a co-operation Meanwhile, the results of cohesive subgroup analysis show that improving the cooperation mechanism and building a cooperation platform play an important role in promoting the blue economy cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area and ASEAN countries. Based on the above findings, the paper proposes policy recommendations to further develop the central role of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and promote the construction of the Greater Bay Area-ASEAN Blue Economy Partnership.

Based on China’s panel data of Type II large cities, medium cities and small cities with a resident population of less than 3 million in 2012, 2014-2018, a Logit model is constructed to analyze the impact of new urbanization on the settlement intention of rural laborers.Results show that the impact of new urbanization on the settlement intention of rural laborers is positive and significant. The test of occupational and generational heterogeneity also shows that new urbanization significantly increases the settlement intention of rural laborers with stable occupations to stay in cities of various scale, with business and new-generation rural laborers are more likely to reside permanently in medium-sized cities and type II large cities, while unstable occupations and old-generation rural laborers preferring small cities. The heterogeneity test of education level and skill differentiation responds to the roots of the above occupational and generational differences. The internal path test shows that improvement of economic in the process of new urbanization significantly increases the settlement intention of rural laborers in type II large cities, small and medium-sized cities, but the effect of public services and ecological construction varies according to the scale of the city and individual characteristics, especially the effect of ecological construction on the settlement intention of rural laborers in small cities has a “U” shape characteristic.Based on the research conclusion, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions to improve the willingness of rural laborers to live permanently from the aspects of accurately identifying the needs of various types of labor, accelerating the ecological construction in the process of new urbanization, and actively grasping the development opportunities of digital technology and digital economy.

As regional integration deepens, the county-level urbanization in inter-provincial border areas has entered a new phase characterized by “cross-border” growth. From the perspective of the flow space theory, the analysis of the relevant data of 22 counties at the Anhui-Jiangsu provincial border using the fsQCA method reveals that the urbanization of these border counties is driven by four pathways: endogenous and exogenous types dominated by cross-provincial resource allocation, as well as endogenous and exogenous types dominated by intra-provincial resource allocation. The driving effects of these pathways on county-level urbanization in border areas are generally stronger than those of individual variables. The tendency for resource allocation in county-level urbanization in border areas is mainly influenced by the degree of provincial economic development and the administrative affiliation with neighboring central cities. The differentiated linkage matching relationships of administrative space linkage, market space interaction, and population space flow have resulted in the differentiation of the driving forces of county-level urbanization. It is therefore necessary to further accelerate the process of regional integration in inter-provincial border areas, and simultaneously, to formulate development strategies for county-level urbanization that are tailored to the characteristics of different types of border areas, thereby ensuring the high-quality development of county-level urbanization in these border areas.

Enhancing urban economic resilience is crucial for ensuring stable development, mitigating risks, and boosting comprehensive competitiveness. Focusing on intellectual property governance, this study utilizes panel data from 279 Chinese cities spanning from 2007 to 2021 and employs a Multi-period Difference-in-Differences Model to empirically examine the impact and underlying mechanisms of the implementation of National Intellectual Property Demonstration City Policy on urban economic resilience. The findings indicate that the implementation of the National Intellectual Property Demonstration City Policy has significantly enhanced the economic resilience of cities.Heterogeneity analysis shows that in cities with lower administrative levels, abundant resource endowments, and larger scales, the implementation of National Intellectual Property Demonstration City Policies has a more significant effect on improving economic resilience. Mechanism analysis shows that the implementation of National Intellectual Property Demonstration City Policies mainly enhances urban economic resilience through urban innovation effects, talent agglomeration effects, and economic vitality effects.

The theory and practice of sub-provincial central cities originated in Hubei Province and subsequently spread nationwide. Based on a review of the theoretical and practical backgrounds and the promotion process of provincial sub-central cities, as well as an analysis of their development motivations, functional characteristics, and policy support mechanisms, this paper proposes policy recommendations for the development and expansion of provincial sub-central cities. Specifically, it suggests seizing opportunities, optimizing the layout of provincial sub-central cities, increasing policy support, granting them greater economic and social management powers, improving infrastructure and service functions, building a modern industrial system, and leveraging sub-central cities as the leaders to construct urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas, thereby enhancing their radiation capabilities and promoting the modernization of provincial governance systems and governance capacities.

Since the expansion of university enrollment in 1999, Chinese higher education institutions have faced pressure for spatial expansion, leading to the establishment of new campuses across various regions. Concurrently, local governments have aimed to stimulate regional economic growth by attracting these new university campuses. This study employs a localized spatial difference-in-differences (Donuts DiD) method and a convolutional neural network-based counterfactual matching spatial Difference-in-Differences (CNN-Matching Donuts DiD) approach to analyze the impact of establishing “Double First-Class” university campuses on local economic growth from the perspective of location-oriented policies. The findings indicate that the establishment of new campuses has indeed promoted the growth of local economic activities.However, its effect on enhancing the commercial value of surrounding land and housing is relatively limited. The primary reasons are that, although the new campuses have stimulated local knowledge spillover activities, driven the transformation of local industrial structures, and facilitated the agglomeration of high-tech industries, the surrounding areas still lack adequate local commercial services and amenities, making it difficult to further amplify the positive externalities of the new campuses on a larger geographical scale. Additionally, the development model wherein local governments allocate substantial real estate land may also be a significant influencing factor. This research provides empirical support for promoting the coordinated and interactive development of future university campuses and urban regions in China.

Since the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei become a national strategy in 2014, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has fully developed the advantages of education, science and technology, and talents, and has made remarkable progress and achievements in promoting the development of new quality productive forces. The core elements of new quality productive forces have accelerated agglomeration. The strategic industries and future industries have accelerated development. The green base of high-quality development has been further consolidated. A good environment has been built up for the development of new quality productive forces. In the future, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region should take the advantages of the integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation to explore the new ways and patterns of developing new quality productive forces as follows. According to the national needs and local capabilities, a national pilot area and demonstration area for the new quality productive forces should be created. Several world-class advanced manufacturing clusters should be jointly built by optimizing the strategic layout of new quality productive forces based on urban agglomerations and three metropolitan areas. A highland for the development of green productivity should be jointly built by accelerating industrial transformation and upgrading. New production relations should be explored as quickly as possible which are compatible with new quality productive forces by comprehensively deepening the reform of key areas. First demonstration and strong support should be provided in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region for the whole country to accelerate the development of new quality productive forces and to promote Chinese-style modernization.

The establishment of China cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone has played a positive role in the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and the promotion of industrial digital development, and a series of institutional innovations in the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone have brought important opportunities for the modernization of enterprises. Based on the data of China’s listed companies from 2011 to 2022, this paper uses a multi-period DID model to examines the impact of the approval of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone on the digital transformation of enterprises. It is found that the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone facilitates the digital transformation of enterprises, and is jointly promoted through three aspects: digital capacity building, market scale expansion and external digital environment construction. In terms of heterogeneity analysis, this facilitation mainly affects enterprises in growth and maturity periods, capital- and technology-intensive industries, and regions with high marketization levels, and to a greater extent for smaller-sized enterprises. In addition, the establishment of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone can also realize positive spillovers on the digital transformation of enterprises through the cohort effect.

The construction of the China Spatial Planning Observation Network (CSPON) requires enhanced monitoring of flow spaces to accurately identify the evolution trends of territorial spatial patterns and spatial relationships. To this end, this study takes the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) as an example to explore evaluation methods for urban agglomeration innovation development planning from the perspective of flow spaces. Based on the structure of the innovation network, we found that the innovative planning objectives have been basically achieved. However, the anticipated close innovation linkage between Guangzhou, Zhuhai, and Macao did not materialize as expected. Instead, innovation cooperation between Macao, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen has significantly strengthened, collectively forming the “Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao-Dongguan” innovation cluster. Through Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) analysis of the spatiotemporal evolution process of the innovation flow network in the GBA from 2016 to 2019, we found that market regulation and planning intervention respectively explained 68.9% and 21.2% of the evolutionary characteristics of the innovation flow network. The analysis results indicate that planning implementation can only partially influence regional innovation development but plays an important role in achieving regional coordination. Additionally, we observed that the influence of planning on the innovation network strengthens over time.

The smart specialization development of innovative cities is of great significance for the country to achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance. How to improve the development level of smart specialization in innovative cities is a hot topic for local governments and academics. This paper takes national innovative cities as cases and combines the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to explore the driving path for the development level of urban high smart specialization. The findings are as follows: A single variable cannot constitute the necessary conditions for the development level of smart specialization in innovative cities, but high-quality and efficient market environment has a general effect on the development level of smart specialization in innovative cities. There are three driving paths to produce the high level of smart specialization in innovative cities: the joint drive of scientific and technological innovation and market environment, the joint drive of government scale and green development, and the joint drive of government scale, market environment and infrastructure, which reflect the different ways of realizing the development level of smart specialization in different innovative cities. There are six configurations of non-high smart specialization development level in innovation-oriented cities, indicating that the technological innovation ability and market environment of cities have a great impact on the development level of smart specialization. There are differences in the driving paths for the development level of smart specialization in innovative cities in eastern, central, western and northeastern regions of China. Local governments can design smart specialization development paths that meet their own characteristics according to the actual situation.

The process of urbanization is accompanied by complex and changeable risks, and it is urgent to strengthen the response and explore the effective mechanism and path of urban risk management modernization. On the basis of the traditional research based on the perspective of static events, more attention should be paid to the changes of risk content from the perspectives of "technology", "people" and "events", focusing on the characteristics of complex association, overall emergence, diffusion amplification, multiple superposition and uncertainty of urban risks, and constructing a front-loaded risk governance framework. It is necessary to give full play to the role of digital technology in empowering urban governance, strengthen digital risk research and judgment, improve digital risk prevention and control, improve intelligent decision-making and risk assessment, build an intelligent risk prevention and control coordination mechanism, improve digital risk supervision, and create a full-cycle urban risk governance system. Looking forward to the future, it is necessary to build a "warm" high-quality urban governance system, promote risk governance with a systematic concept, innovate the risk governance system, promote people-centered refined governance, and form a new pattern of risk governance with multiple co-governance.

A high-quality ecological environment has become an important goal of pollution reduction and emission reduction in the context of high-quality development. Based on the panel data of 286 cities in China from 2005 to 2020, this paper empirically tests the impact of ecological space scale and structure on improving air quality using ordinary panel models and spatial panel models. The study shows that the higher the ratio of urban ecological space to construction space, blue-green space to construction space, and blue-green space to urban space area, the more obvious the inhibitory effect on PM_2.5 concentration. The increase in the ratio of ecological space to construction space, and blue-green space to construction space has a more pronounced inhibitory effect in non-heating areas. The increase in the ratio of ecological space to construction space in high-pressure cities has the greatest negative impact on PM_2.5 concentration, followed by the relevant impact in C-level pressure cities, and the relevant impact in E-level pressure cities is not significant. The impact of the scale and structure of urban ecological space on urban air pollution control is influenced by strong spatial spillover effects. Based on this, we should optimize the scale and structure of urban ecological space, maintain urban ecological balance, strengthen the awareness of win-win cooperation in pollution prevention and control, and improve the level of collaborative governance of air pollution.

Digital village construction has a crucial role in promoting the flow of urban-rural factors and narrowing the urban-rural digital divide, examining how it affects the convergence characteristics and change trends of the income gap between urban and rural residents is an important issue in promoting rural revitalization and common prosperity. The entropy method, coefficient of variation and panel threshold model are used to empirically analyze the panel data of 30 provinces (autonomous regions) in China since 1978, and explore the impact mechanism of digital village construction and other driving factors on the convergence of the income gap between urban and rural residents under the dual economic structure. The research results show that: taking 1994 and 2009 as nodes, the income gap between urban and rural residents in China has presented two “U” shaped fluctuation processes since 1978, and is now in a declining stage, whether a third “U” shaped fluctuation process will be formed in the future depends on whether it has convergence at this stage. At present, the income gap between urban and rural residents in China has significant δ and β convergence characteristics. Digital village countryside can improve the convergence speed of the income gap between urban and rural residents, and its impact has stage differences and regional heterogeneity. Economic growth, industrialization, urbanization, informatization and agricultural modernization are important factors affecting the convergence of the income gap between urban and rural residents.

This study employs the establishment of the data managment agency as a quasi-natural experiment to construct a theoretical model illustrating how government data governance drives corporate green innovation. Using panel data from listed enterprises from 2010 to 2024 and applying a uble Machine Learning(DML) approach, we empirically find the results as following: Firstly, government data governance significantly enhances enterprise green innovation efficiency. Secondly, the green innovation promotion effect is more pronounced in highly digitalized enterprises, monopolistic industries, and central cities. Thirdly, government data governance improves green innovation efficiency through supporting digital technology R&D, optimizing digital management organizations, and enhancing the digital ecosystem. This study provides practical strategies for governments to manage data elements effectively and offers a theoretical basis for advancing corporate green transformation.

The coordination of elderly care services is an important part of the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. From the perspective of matching supply and demand, this paper analyzes the achievements, problems, and development paths of the coordinated development of elderly care services in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The results of the research indicate that the coordination of elderly care services in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has been continuously strengthened, the level of coordination in medical and elderly care services has been continuously improved, the smart elderly care services have been accelerated, and the supply of elderly care services has been significantly increased. Further analysis reveals that, at present, the coordinated development of elderly care services of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei still faces problems such as the overall weak demand of living in different places, unmet demand for heterogeneous elderly care, unbalanced allocation of medical resources, and the ability of digital collaboration and policy synergy that needs to be improved. Therefore, it is recommended to establish a regional smart elderly care information system, deepen the coordination of medical and health services, build a diversified elderly care service supply system, and improve the elderly care service coordination mechanism, in order to make the regional elderly care service supply and demand accurately linked, and accelerate the building of a Chinese path to modernization oriented elderly care service coordination demonstration area of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Integrating functional zones and administrative regions is crucial to improving the national governance system and capacity, promoting high-quality regional economic development, and fostering new productive forces. Based on the quasi-administrative region theory, this study constructs an analytical framework encompassing“constituent elements-institutional deficiencies-problem manifestations-spatial functions-optimization and enhancement.” Using the Z New District of H City as a case study, the research examines the integration path between urban new districts and administrative regions. The findings indicate that the informal and flexible characteristics of urban new district components lead to institutional deficiencies, resulting in ambiguous legal status for governing entities, incomplete institutional functions, and difficulties in coordinating with local administrative regions. To ensure the effective realization of urban new district spatial functions, this study proposes reform recommendations from power scale, functional domains, and external coordination.

Environmental information disclosure is an important tool for government environmental governance. Based on the “institutional logics-embedding degree” framework, this study uses the panel data of 104 key environmental protection cities in China from 2013 to 2018 to identify the multiple influencing factors and generation paths of government environmental information disclosure through a mixed research method. The results show that government environmental information disclosure is not dominated by a single institutional logic, but the result of the interaction among bureaucracy, market, social logics and the embedding degree of government. Among them, the conditions of peer competition, enterprise demand and public attention have a more significant promoting effect on government environmental information disclosure. The generation path of high performance of government environmental information disclosure can be divided into “multiple institutional logics-driven” and “institutional logics and independent embedding-coupling”.In the future,efforts can be made to enhance the performance of environmental information disclosure.

Based on CLDS2016 and multilevel logit modeling, through the development of a situation-connection-participation analytical framework, findings reveal that community heterogeneity predominantly manifests in social rather than physical spaces. The higher levels of disadvantage concentration and hukou segregation within communities appear to facilitate increased participation opportunities, challenging Western assumptions that socioeconomic segregation inevitably results in political exclusion. Conversely, intra-community status heterogeneity and residential mobility exhibit inhibitory effects on participation. The study identifies neighboring connections as a significant mediating factor in the relationship between community heterogeneity and participation. Based on the above findings, policy recommendations are made to activate the potential of immigrants in disadvantaged communities to participate in governance, enhancing neighbor's social connection in mixed community, and speeding up the process of housing supports for rural-urban immigrants.

The integration of new quality of productive forces into urban ecological renewal is a robust response and proactive adaptation to the trends of urban intensification, high-quality development, and green innovation. Communities are the basic units of urban social life, and community ecological renewal is an important foundational domain for urban ecological renewal. Taking community ecological renewal as the research object, this study analyzes the development trends of community ecological renewal and the challenges in its integration with new quality of productive forces. Following the logic of “planning - renovation - governance - safeguarding,” and from an interdisciplinary perspective combining urban sociology, urban ecology, and urban planning, a systematic framework for community ecological renewal empowered by new quality of productive forces is constructed. This framework specifically includes a community low-carbon ecological renewal planning system, a community spatial adaptability renovation system, a community multi-stakeholder collaborative ecological renewal governance system, and a multi-dimensional safeguarding system for community ecological renewal.

Cultural heritage, as a vital carrier of excellent traditional Chinese culture, readily awakens cultural identity within the public consciousness and facilitates the formation of cultural self-confidence. Taking the “Beijing Central Axis” as an example, this study establishes a concrete and detailed logical connection between the abstract concepts of cultural heritage and tourist value perception through a data-driven analysis of user-generated content and the application of Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) machine learning methodology. It employs data, indicator systems, and theoretical relationships generated during the empirical research process to delve into the issues at hand. After data validation and analysis, it is found that Chinese tourists currently hold a high perception of the value of the Beijing Central Axis, which contributes to the enhancement of cultural self-confidence. However, five issues are identified that diminish tourists’ value perception of the Central Axis: inadequate universal design for all ages, insufficient provision of lean services, suboptimal viewing experiences, stringent event management, and partial loss of the Central Axis integrity. In response to these findings, targeted countermeasures and suggestions are proposed, offering new insights for the value excavation, conservation, development, and evaluation of cultural heritage.

The development direction of future city should shift from an environment-centered sustainable city to humanity-oriented LOHAS city, with the integration of “industry-city-people” serving as the necessary pathway toward LOHAS city. This study constructs a LOHAS city index, which emphasizes bottleneck constraints, along three dimensions: industrial promotion, population attraction, and the pursuit of comfort. The index is applied to evaluate the current status of LOHAS city construction in 252 domestic cities. The evaluation results reveal that significant disparities exist in LOHAS city construction levels, with approximately 70% of cities experiencing various bottleneck constraints. Based on the evaluation results, the 252 cities are categorized into five types: industry-urban integration, public service, emerging industry, lifestyle consumption, and lagging industry-urban integration. Furthermore, the lagging industry-urban integration type is subdivided into six subcategories: nascent industry-urban integration, public service deficiency, industrial development deficiency, commercial and industrial deficiency, combined industrial and public service deficiency, and industry-city-people deficiency. This study finds that economic development, population mobility, and the LOHAS city construction level interact with each other, and both the LOHAS city construction level and economic development jointly contribute to enhancing urban population attractiveness.

Many high-tech clusters have become the main driver of urban innovation, among which the role of universities cannot be ignored. To explore how National University Science and Technology Parks (NUSTP) contribute to enhancing urban innovation, this paper examines the current status and mechanisms of the NUSTP policy in China. Drawing on macro-level data on NUSTP and related examples, this study finds that NUSTPs in China effectively strengthen urban innovation capacity. This is primarily achieved by accelerating university knowledge spillovers, fostering industry-university-research collaborations, optimizing the supply of innovation services and improving the efficiency of urban innovation factor allocation. However, NUSTPs still face challenges, including limited policy scope and insufficient efforts to convert university research outcomes into innovative productivity. Based on these findings, the paper offers policy recommendations in three areas: park development, incentive mechanisms for NUSTPs, and enhancing the functional roles of the parks.

Promoting the development of cross-boundary commuter circle is the main way to speed up the construction of modern metropolitan area with megacities as the core. Taking the commuter circle around Beijing as an example, this paper analyzes the main obstacles existing in the development of cross-boundary commuter circle. The paper concludes that the development of cross-boundary commuting circle should explore the new management system, fiscal and tax sharing mechanism, decentralization mechanism, unified development mechanism and market-oriented operation mechanism under the moderate separation of economic zone and administrative region. The paper proposes to focus on the “five turns” of collaborative efforts. It includes shifting from “megacity reduction development” to “metropolitan area integration development”, from “administrative district economy” to “economic zone economy”, from “subway-led” to “suburban railway-led”, from “single-station development” of rail transit to “whole-area TOD comprehensive development”, from “heavy industry, heavy residence” to “heavy life and heavy service”. Solve the practical problems and institutional barriers that restrict the development of cross-border commuter circles, and expand the new development space of major capitals.

This study investigates the impact and underlying mechanisms of digital technology cooperation on urban economic resilience, which is of great significance for bridging the regional digital divide and enhancing economic resilience through the digital economy. Utilizing panel data from 279 cities in China spanning the period from 2007 to 2021, a comprehensive dataset of inter-city digital technology cooperation patents was constructed to reveal the impact and underlying mechanisms of digital technology cooperation on urban economic resilience. Research shows that digital technology cooperation significantly boosts urban economic resilience, which remains robust across various robustness checks. Mechanism analysis indicates that this cooperation enhances urban economic resilience through multiple pathways, including improving innovation quality, curbing resource misallocation, and enhancing human capital. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the positive impact of digital technology cooperation is more pronounced in eastern regions, urban agglomerations, and non-old industrial base cities. Additionally, cities with stronger intellectual property protection, greater high-skilled talent agglomeration, and more advanced digital infrastructure benefit more significantly from such cooperation.