The Impact of Urban Renewal Development on Ecological Resilience in China’s Resource-Based Cities

Based on panel data from 102 resource-based cities in China spanning 2013 to 2023, this study employs fixed effects and mediating effect models to empirically examine the impact of urban renewal on eco-environmental resilience. The main findings are as follows. First, urban renewal development significantly enhances eco-environmental resilience, and this conclusion remains robust after various robustness checks. Second, heterogeneity analysis reveals that the impact exhibits a distinctive regional pattern: “the central region shows the strongest promotion effect, the eastern region shows a relatively weaker promotion effect, and the western region exhibits a pronounced inhibitory effect.” Furthermore, the promoting effect is more pronounced in regions with lower energy consumption pressure, higher environmental governance investment, and larger city sizes. Third, urban renewal can enhance eco-environmental resilience through two pathways: promoting industrial structure optimization and upgrading, and strengthening environmental regulation. Fourth, the urbanization level plays a significant moderating role in the process by which urban renewal enhances the eco-environmental resilience of resource-based cities.