What determines urban resilience against COVID-19: City size or governance capacity?

Abstract

This study analyzed the effects of urban governance and city size on COVID-19 prevention and control measures. Based on real-time data in 276 prefecture-level Chinese cities, we used the ordinary least squares plus robust standard error strategy. It was found that: (1) despite the non-significant effect of city size, urban governance capacity was an important factor affecting the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic; urban governance capacity was particularly significant in the late control of the pandemic, but not significant in the early prevention; for every unit increase of urban governance capacity, the number of recovered COVID-19 cases per capita increased by 2.4%. Moreover, (2) the influence mechanism of anti-pandemic measures in cities could be divided into the workforce, financial, and material effects, and their contribution rates were 26.15%, 32.55%, and 37.20%, respectively; namely, the effective/timely assistance from Chinese central government regarding the workforce, financial, and material resources in key pandemic areas and nationwide played a major role in pandemic control. Additionally, (3) cities with a high level of smart city construction were more capable of enhancing the pandemic prevention and control effect, indicating that smart city construction is conducive to enhanced coping with public crises.