Synergizing urban smartness and resilience: An evaluation framework for coupling coordination and influencing factors

An effective synergy between urban smartness and resilience is vitally important for promoting high-quality and sustainable urban development. For this reason, the study develops a comprehensive evaluation framework to offer an integrated understanding of the synergistic development of urban smartness and resilience. From the perspective of urban social-ecological-technological systems, the framework integrates three methodological approaches: CRITIC-TOPSIS for indicator evaluation, a coupling coordination model for quantitative analysis, and obstacle diagnosis for pinpointing critical constraints. An empirical analysis of 35 large-scale Chinese cities (2011–2023) demonstrates the framework’s applicability. The findings indicate that: (1) the overall development levels of urban smartness and resilience have improved; (2) while resilience generally lags behind smartness, the two aspects tend to be synchronized for the most part; (3) the coupling coordination degree of urban smartness and resilience increases with the scale of the city, although the gap is gradually narrowing; (4) Urban scale influences the coordinated development of cities. Supercities need to focus on alleviating population pressure and ecological pressure. Megacities must prioritize improving public service, and large cities must strengthen regional economic and population development. These insights offer recommendations for facilitating coordinated, high-quality, sustainable urban development.