Resilience of urban vitality under external shocks: Planning insights from Seoul during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Resilience of urban vitality during the COVID-19 pandemic was measured in Seoul. • Three resilience dimensions were resistance, recovery capacity, and adaptability. • Neighborhood characteristics shaped resilience differently across dimensions. • Context-specific effects revealed heterogeneous and dynamic resilience patterns. • Findings provide insights for sustainable urban planning and tailored strategies. Although urban vitality and resilience are often examined as distinct phenomena, little is known about how vitality evolves across different phases of resilience under external shocks. This study investigates the resilience of urban vitality in Seoul during the COVID-19 pandemic by distinguishing three dimensions: resistance, recovery capacity, and adaptability. Using de facto population data (2018–2024), we trace resilience trajectories with a dynamic measurement framework that operationalizes these dimensions. Structural equation modeling is then applied to identify how neighborhood-level indicators for 424 administrative units shaped these three dimensions. The results show that resilience varied across neighborhoods: resistance declined in office-dominated areas but was partially supported by lodging and school facilities, recovery capacity was constrained by industrial land use but strengthened by favorable demographic composition and green space, and adaptability was reinforced by high levels of public transport accessibility. By contrast, several land-use and facility variables demonstrated inconsistent or marginal effects, indicating that resilience was shaped more by social composition, spatial openness, and connectivity than by static density measures. These findings highlight the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of resilience and underscore the need for differentiated strategies in sustainable urban planning.