A suitable living environment is the common aspiration of city residents and the inherent requirement of sustainable development. This paper takes 114 resource-based cities in China as the research objects, constructs a pseudo human settlement environment (PSH) system based on network data, and constructs a real human settlement environment (RSH) system based on traditional data, measures the coupling coordination degree of the pseudo and real human settlement environment, and uses Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyze its improvement path. The conclusions are as follows:(1) The evaluation index of real human settlements in China’s resource-based cities continues to grow, and the evaluation index of pseudo human settlements increases first and then decreases. (2) The coupling coordination degree between the resource-based pseudo city and the real human settlement environment presents an inverted U-shaped change trend, and the overall distribution presents a three-level ladder-like distribution of east-central-west. (3) A single condition has a weak ability to explain the coupling coordination degree of human settlements; the coupling coordination degree of resource-based cities has formed three improvement paths: opening + finance driven model, opening + education + finance driven model, and education + finance driven model.

In the context of sustainable development, economic resilience provides a new research perspective for resource-based cities to resist external shocks and risks. The purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics and determinants of resource-based cities’ economic resilience in China, and to provide effective policy recommendations. This paper constructs an index system to measure the economic resilience of 114 resource-based cities in China from 2005 to 2019. This paper uses spatial analysis methods and the Theil index to reveal spatiotemporal evolution and regional disparities. Then, it uses the spatial Durbin model to reveal influencing factors from the perspective of spatial spillover effects. The conclusions are as follows: Firstly, the economic resilience of resource-based cities in China shows a growth trend. The spatial polarization of economic resilience in resource-based cities has intensified, showing a distribution pattern of high in the east and low in the west and northeast, with the cold spot of economic resilience moving from the southwest to the northeast. Secondly, the distribution of economic resilience in the eight economic regions is spatially heterogeneous. Inter-regional disparity is the main source of different economic resilience in the eight major economic regions. Thirdly, market potential and talent development potential are the direct drivers of economic resilience in resource-based cities. Nationalization, industrial specialization, and fiscal risk inhibit the development of economic resilience. Resource dependence not only hinders local innovation and transformation ability, but also negatively impacts the economic resilience of surrounding cities. Therefore, resource-based cities need to promote the diversification of industrial structures, and ensure resource allocation through the combination of the market and the government. At the same time, the government should build a new mechanism for coordinated regional development and open up the enclave economic model.