This article applies the network analysis to evaluate the resilience of economic network in Guanzhong Plain City Cluster (GPCC) and examine the impact of network structural properties on economic resilience, thus providing an innovative research perspective and a theoretical framework for evaluating the economic resilience of the city cluster. A modified gravity model is introduced to construct the economic network. Three structural properties of the network, hierarchy, assortativity, and cohesion, are used to evaluate the resilience of the GPCC from 2008 to 2018 and illustrate the characteristics of the resilience. The results show that the economic network of the GPCC is strongly hierarchical with a growing trend, a declining disassortativity, and a weak cohesion. Although the network has formed a coreperipheral structure, its hierarchy and disassortativity would result in low resilience and high vulnerability, at the risk of external shocks to the GPCC. The impact of the network structure on economic resilience is analyzed by using a regression model, which verifies the validity of applying the network theory to resilience analysis. The results suggest that improving the interactions and economic connections between core and peripheral cities will strengthen the resilience of the GPCC.

The structures of industrial linkages form an essential basis for the economy and have an important impact on urban economic resilience. By analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on China’s urban economy in 2020, this study uses China’s national input–output table to measure the centrality and diversity of industrial linkage structures. Extracted data from 298 cities in China are used to explore the impact of centrality and diversity on urban economic resilience. The results show that the cities in East China, Central China, and the Chengdu–Chongqing area in western China have a high centrality with respect to industrial linkage structures. Cities in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River city cluster, and the Chengdu–Chongqing city cluster have a high diversity of industrial linkages structures. During the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, most cities in China have shown high economic resilience. For cities across the country, diversity shows a significant and positive correlation with economic resilience, and centrality shows a significant and positive correlation with economic resilience. The latter displays an inverted U-shaped relationship between centrality and economic resilience. For cities with different population sizes, there are differences in the impacts of centrality and diversity on urban economic resilience. Different industrial policies can be developed to adjust the centrality and diversity of the cities to enhance urban economic resilience.