Evaluation of economic transformation and upgrading of resource-based cities in Shaanxi province based on an improved TOPSIS method

The economic transformation and upgrading of resource-based cities is an overleaping development caused by technological progress and institutional change. Traditional models do not comprehensively evaluate the development level of resource-based cities. This study establishes a comprehensive index system from three aspects: economic adjustment, social progress and environmental improvement. An improved TOPSIS method and sequence weighting are applied to evaluate the level of transformation and upgrading of six resource-based cities in Shaanxi province from 2001 to 2015. The results indicate that six resource-based cities in Shaanxi Province have made an improvement in economic adjustment, social progress and environmental improvement. The economic adjustment effect is not obvious and there is a downward trend in some cities. The social development level of six resource-based cities increases significantly. The structural contradictions in the economy has not been fundamentally resolved. The effect of environmental improvement shows an evident increasing trend. All the six cities in environmental improvement achieve successful transformation.