As a significant issue, mining cities, especially the resource-exhausted mining cities have already been given intensive attention by academia and government. This article discusses the intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for problems of the mining cities from the perspective of sustainable development, quantitatively analyzes the economic benefit of the mining cities with statistical data, and presents the strategies and measures for sustainable development of the mining cities based on the theoretical discus- sion and empirical study of different types of mining cities. The research shows that: (1) the conflict between the mining cities and the mining enterprises which has been incorrectly dealt with for a long time is the primary reason for the problems of the mining cities. More seriously, the development gap between mining cities and non-mining cities is becoming larger than ever before, due to the domestic and international competition. (2) As a whole, the economic development level of the mining cities is lower than the average level of countrywide cities. The economic benefit of the mining cities is increasing owing to the economic scale, and the economic situations of oil-mining cites and iron-mining cites are relatively better than those of other types of mining cities. (3) The prerequisite of sustainable development of the mining cities is the realization of the transformation of capital superiority so as to promote non-mining economy and substitute the mining economy step by step.
