Taking the Chinese context seriously, this book provides critical reflections and policy-informed accounts of how and why old industrial cities generate uneven resilience in the face of crisis. It offers unconventional conceptualizations and on-the-ground empirical studies in the Chinese context when it comes to the literature on regional economic resilience. Theoretically, this book adopts multiple perspectives, including evolutionary, complex adaptive systems, and institutional and geographical political economy, to provide a more systematic understanding of regional economic resilience in Chinese old industrial cities. Empirically, this book adopts a comparative analysis approach to explore the in-depth nature of uneven regional economic resilience by focusing on two coal mining regions in China. The book also makes an additional and timely academic contribution to the literature on the conceptualization and empirics of regional economic resilience under the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

This book is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students and scholars interested in economic geography in general and regional economic resilience, regional industrial dynamics and old industrial cities in China in particular. It is also a useful reference for local and regional governments, as well as businesses, for policy-making and action in the face of crisis.