Examining relationship between economic resilience and centrality within an urban network

Abstract

Nowadays, the concept of smart cities and the measurability of their performance are becoming more and more the focus of interest. Smart cities can have a number of different interpretations that tend to emphasize resource optimization, using innovative strategies and solutions to address growing urban problems and improve quality of life for the population. In addition, smart cities need to be able to adapt to rapidly changing external conditions and to deal with shock-like externalities, i.e. to show resilient behaviour. The present study examines the relationship between smart cities and resilience by interpreting urban resilience, defining its concept, and describing its measurability issues. Using literature and methodological recommendations, the study presents the distribution and components of a complex resilience index for the Hungarian urban network, exploring territorial characteristics and examining the relationship between the resilience values of Hungarian cities and the networks of urban migration. Based on the results, significant regional differences can be observed for the complex resilience index and its components, with different focus areas. Towns in the Budapest agglomeration perform outstandingly in all components and form a hotspot area. The relationship between the complex resilience index and the network centrality of towns is basically significant in towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants, the improvement of centrality within the urban network is accompanied by a high resilience value.