How urban greening policy affects urban ecological resilience: Quasi-natural experimental evidence from three megacity clusters in China

This study examines how urban greening policies affect urban ecological resilience through a quasi-natural experimental analysis of various cities in China. Leveraging the country's large-scale promotion of forest city development, we assess the effectiveness of these policies using differences-in-differences modeling across multiple time periods. The results affirm the positive impact of urban greening on resilience, as designated forest cities demonstrated enhanced resilience levels compared to control cities. Notable disparities were also found among the three major Chinese urban agglomerations - the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regions - in terms of policy effects. While short-term resilience increased under central government oversight, long-term gains relied more on intercity cooperation within agglomerations. It highlights the limitations inherent within China's "experiment under hierarchy" paradigm but also benefits from regional integration. This study contributes novel insights regarding the dynamic relationship between governance structures and urban ecosystem resilience under authoritarian contexts. Innovatively, we explore how intercity cooperation among urban agglomerations affects the long-term effectiveness of urban ecological governance, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in fostering resilient urban ecosystems under such governance models.