Promoting high-quality transformation and development of resource-exhausted cities is strategically important for advancing China’s overall urban modernization. To reveal the combined effects of the interaction among multiple urban development factors, this study employs a method that integrates dynamic qualitative comparative analysis with necessary condition analysis to explore the configurational effects in the transformation of 23 resource-exhausted cities in China. The findings indicate that no single condition constitutes a necessary condition for transforming resource-exhausted cities; instead, multiple antecedent conditions jointly influence the outcome. Four effective driving paths are identified, which can be categorized into three development models: ecological cities driven by interconnectivity, open cities with improved transport systems, and innovative cities under strong government attention. The dynamic analysis reveals that the configurations of antecedent conditions exhibit certain temporal patterns, with all four paths showing relative stability over time and an overall trend of increasing explanatory power. This study provides a theoretical reference for exploring the high-quality transformation of resource-exhausted cities.
Yuan et al. (2026) studied this question.