The population and area of study area.

Transforming resource-based cities into sustainable economic development is a great challenge for policy-makers in many countries. However, the economic-centered evaluation system tends to breed the undesirable view of "GDP only" or “brown growth” in the previous case studies which is inconsistent with the long-run and sustainable development of resource-based cities. To fill in this research gap, this paper takes Jilin province in northeast China as a case study to explore urban development problems faced by major resource-based cities during resource depletion. This research constructs a stratified indicator system and conducts an in-depth analysis of the features and spatial effects of urban decline. For this analysis, this paper jointly uses the methods of entropy-weighted TOPSIS, analytic hierarchical process (AHP), and spatial effect model based on a database from 2000 to 2019. The findings of this study show that the current transformation of resource-based cities in Jilin province is generally ineffective and difficult to maintain long-run and sustainable development due to its historical reasons and industrial development background. According to the results, the resource-based cities in Jilin province show an unstable development because of factors such as barriers to the physical renewal of resources, rigid industrial structure, insufficient backup resources, and institutional and policy constraints. Also, the transformation of these cities into sustainable economic development is still facing demographic, social, and ecological difficulties.推动资源型城市（resource-based cities）向可持续经济发展模式转型，是诸多国家政策制定者面临的重大挑战。然而，既有案例研究中以经济为中心的评价体系往往会滋生“唯GDP论”或“棕色增长”的不良倾向，这与资源型城市的长期可持续发展目标背道而驰。为填补这一研究空白，本研究以中国东北吉林省为研究案例，探究大型资源型城市在资源枯竭阶段面临的城市发展难题。本研究构建了分层评价指标体系，并对城市衰退的特征与空间效应开展深入分析。本次分析基于2000至2019年的数据库，联合运用熵权TOPSIS法、层次分析法（AHP）以及空间效应模型三种研究方法。研究结果表明，受历史成因与产业发展背景制约，吉林省当前资源型城市转型整体成效欠佳，难以维持长期可持续发展态势。进一步分析显示，吉林省资源型城市发展并不稳定，其诱因涵盖资源实体更新受阻、产业结构僵化、后备资源匮乏以及体制与政策约束等多重因素。此外，这些城市向可持续经济发展模式转型仍面临人口、社会与生态领域的多重困境。