Is It Feasible for China’s Resource-Based Cities to Achieve Sustainable Development? A Natural Resource Dependence Perspective

Theoretically, regions with rich natural resources often tend to develop resource-based industries more intensively, resulting in resource-dependent land development. China’s resource-dependent cities exhibit certain exceptions. Natural resource dependence (NRD) plays a relatively positive role in the total factor productivity change (TFPCH) in these cities, primarily attributable to their relatively mature technological efficiency. However, while such positive impacts exist, their overall effect remains limited. Many resource-based cities in China still face challenges in achieving sustainable growth. This raises a key question: why have some resource-based cities failed to achieve sustainable development? In order to explore the root cause of this problem, this paper systematically analyses the impact of resource dependence on TFPCH, and its governance mechanism based on the balanced panel data of 112 resource cities in China from 2003 to 2021, using the Super-SBM-DEA-Malmquist index method in the first stage, and the OLS model in the second stage. The main findings of this paper are as follows: First, NRD has a significantly positive impact on TFPCH, especially in growing and regenerating cities. The empirical results further validate the applicability of the resource blessing theory in China. Second, government regulation has a dampening effect on TFPCH in resource cities, which suggests that in the future development of resource cities, government intervention should be moderately reduced, and more emphasis should be placed on stimulating the city’s own autonomous mobility and endogenous development drive. Third, heterogeneity analyses show that this promotional effect is mainly realized through the improvement of technical efficiency. Fourth, the analysis of the moderation effect shows that research and development (R&D) intensity plays a positively moderating role in the sustainable development of resource-based cities. Through a stepwise approach, this paper reveals why resource-based cities cannot achieve sustainable development. The level of R&D in some resource-based cities remains relatively low, while it is the key factor for the applicability of the resource blessing (RB) hypothesis in China’s resource city. The findings not only provide new perspectives for theoretical research, but also important policy recommendations for the sustainable governance of land use in resource-based cities worldwide.