Urban economic resilience within the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration: Exploring spatially correlated network and spatial heterogeneity

As interconnectivity within urban agglomeration intensifies, enhancing inter-city economic linkages and resilience to uncertainty shocks has become imperative for economic sustainability. This study measured urban economic resilience, and then unveiled its spatial correlation and heterogeneity at urban agglomeration scale. Social network analysis revealed overall network characteristics and nodes' structural features of the delineated spatially correlated network of economic resilience. Factors driving spatial correlations were explored using QAP regression. Additionally, spatial heterogeneity of economic resilience was analysed, and GeoDetector was employed to determine the impacts of various factors and their interactions. The economic resilience of 26 cities within the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration was calculated. The spatially correlated network exhibits lower density and efficiency. Some cities play central, bridging, and connected roles, while others have limited connectivity, linked to factors like population mobility, spatial adjacency, economic development difference, and knowledge network. During regional integration strategy promotion, significant global spatial autocorrelation is observed, and local spatial autocorrelation reveals heterogeneity in economic resilience. It could be explained by various factors, with nonlinear enhancement effects of two-factor interactions. Recommendations are proposed for enhancing economic resilience by strengthening connections and coordinating despite differences, thus facilitating resilience shaping economic growth and advancing regional sustainability.