Landscape Preference Evaluation of Old Residential Neighbourhoods: A Case Study in Shi Jiazhuang, Hebei Province, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript “Landscape Preference Evaluation of Old Residential Neighborhoods: A Case Study in Shi Jiazhuang, Hebei Province, China” presents a large-scale questionnaire survey and semistructured interviews to determine the landscape preference of the residents of old residential neighbourhoods for the community green spaces s using the virtual model method. It is a methodological study with conducted experience. I recommend its publication after corrections.

Comments for authors

Language

I have no objections to the linguistic correctness.

Subject

The subject is correct.

Keywords

A part of the words have been chosen correctly, but the second part repeats the title.

Abstract

The Abstract reflects the content of the manuscript. It contains the necessary elements. However, there is no precise aim of the work.

1. Introduction

The literature review is established in the world literature. However, there is no precise aim of the work. This should be absolutely corrected. In this form, the aim is indirectly defined.

The paragraph containing lines 68-85 relates to national conditions. This content should be moved to the description of the research area or placed in a separate section.

2. Materials and Methods

I have no major objections to the text. Correct description of the various stages of the research. Correct presentation of the research area. The data used and their scope are a guarantee of correct results.

Technical Notes:

1. Figures 1 and 2 are maps. They are not correct from a cartographic point of view. No north arrow, scale bar, legend. Some items are illegible.

2. Table 2 contains small format photos. They are difficult to analyze. I suggest putting them in larger size attachments.

3. Results and Discussion

Correctly described results. This makes the text read quickly and is understandable. Division of result sections in accordance with the methodological assumptions.

The discussion takes into account previous research and conclusions.

Separating the results from the discussion may improve the readability of the text, but I leave the decision to the authors.

Technical Notes:

Table 3 – see commentary to table 2.

Table 4 – very extensive and hard to read. I suggest moving it to an attachment (additional materials) and formatting it into smaller groups.

Table 5 – see recommendations for table 4.

4.   Recommendations

A very important and well written section. The case study requires this type of reflection.

5. Conclusion

The conclusions partly repeat the content of the previous sections. Conclusions should summarize the results and discussion, but not repeat them. It should be clearly justified that the manuscript contains sufficient contributions to the new body of knowledge from the international perspective. What new things (new theories, new methods or new policies) can the paper contribute to international literature?

References

A rich, up-to-date and correct set of literature.

Others

The manuscript is a valuable methodological study. It requires suggested additions. The results and discussion are very interesting and valuable. Despite the critical remarks concerning the conclusion part, I believe that it deserves to be published in the corrected version. I hope that the comments contained in the review will contribute to raising the scientific level of the article.

 Conclusion from the review – the manuscript requires minor changes recommended by the reviewer.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments on our manuscript. The comments are valuable and helpful. We have read the comments carefully and made corrections. Following the instructions in your letter, we uploaded the revised manuscript file. Modifications in the text use blue and green words, see manuscript for details.

Point 1:  Keywords

A part of the words have been chosen correctly, but the second part repeats the title.

Response 1:

The keywords have been replaced, and the old residential neighbourhoods is replaced by public perception(See line 41)

Point 2: Abstract

The Abstract reflects the content of the manuscript. It contains the necessary elements. However, there is no precise aim of the work.

Response 2: 

We have added research aim in abstract section( see lines 33-35).

Point 3: Introduction

The literature review is established in the world literature. However, there is no precise aim of the work. This should be absolutely corrected. In this form, the aim is indirectly defined.

The paragraph containing lines 68-85 relates to national conditions. This content should be moved to the description of the research area or placed in a separate section.

Response 3:

1.The research aims are specified in the introduction(see lines 182-187);

2.The part about the national conditions has been put into the 1.1 background as an independent part(see lines 61-89).

Point 4: Materials and Methods

I have no major objections to the text. Correct description of the various stages of the research. Correct presentation of the research area. The data used and their scope are a guarantee of correct results.

Technical Notes:

1. Figures 1 and 2 are maps. They are not correct from a cartographic point of view. No north arrow, scale bar, legend. Some items are illegible.
2. Table 2 contains small format photos. They are difficult to analyze. I suggest putting them in larger size attachments.

Response 4:

1.Figure 1 and Figure 2 were merged, and a north arrow and a scale bar were added, and some unclear points were adjusted.

2.Table2 has been put into the appendixA, and the size of the picture has been enlarged

Point 5: Results and Discussion

Correctly described results. This makes the text read quickly and is understandable. Division of result sections in accordance with the methodological assumptions.

The discussion takes into account previous research and conclusions.

Separating the results from the discussion may improve the readability of the text, but I leave the decision to the authors.

Technical Notes:

Table 3 – see commentary to table 2.

Table 4 – very extensive and hard to read. I suggest moving it to an attachment (additional materials) and formatting it into smaller groups.

Table 5 – see recommendations for table 4.

Response 5:

1. Duplicate tables have been removed,

2.Table 4 moved to Appendix B

3.Table 5 moved to Appendix C

Point 6: Conclusion

The conclusions partly repeat the content of the previous sections. Conclusions should summarize the results and discussion, but not repeat them. It should be clearly justified that the manuscript contains sufficient contributions to the new body of knowledge from the international perspective. What new things (new theories, new methods or new policies) can the paper contribute to international literature?

Response 6:

The conclusion section deletes the content that duplicates the previous content, and emphasizes the contribution to the new knowledge system from an international perspective(see lines 550-580)

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for the interesting paper, which is not really innovative but it is well-constructed and really clear.

Just two small remarks:

fig.1 is too big for the information that it gives

Review the whole paper because there are some typos.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments on our manuscript. The comments are valuable and helpful. We have read the comments carefully and made corrections. Following the instructions in your letter, we uploaded the revised manuscript file. Modifications in the text use blue and green words, see manuscript for details.

Point 1: fig.1 is too big for the information that it gives

Response 1: Figure 1 has been drawn in detail according to your revision comments, and the scope of the information has been narrowed. See the manuscript

Point 2:Review the whole paper because there are some typos.

Response 2: We have read the article and made corrections for typos.

Reviewer 3 Report

I read the article entitled “ Landscape Preference Evaluation of Old Residential Neighborhoods: A Case Study in Shi Jiazhuang, Hebei Province, China “ with great interest and would like to thank the editors for giving me a chance to engage with this work. The aim of this article is to determine the landscape preference of the residents of old residential neighbourhoods for community green spaces using the virtual model method. In my opinion, it is a very relevant and important undertaking; especially in the current context. I congratulate the author(s) on their effort to establish such a logical and original method. But I think there are some points in the work which need to be considered in order to warrant the manuscript for publication.

 -Contribution to academia needs to be highlighted in the abstract, introduction and conclusion part of the study. The contribution of the study needs to be explained in such a way that to increase the originality of the study.

-The title of the article doesn't match the first two paragraphs of the introduction. The is no justifiable reason why the authors started with “affordable and accessible housing” without referring to the main theme of the manuscript which is  Old Residential Neighborhoods.

- Introduction doesn’t have any scientific structure to highlight the problem of the study or the gap in the literature. The introduction of the manuscript is not well-organized author may use the strategy of “ big umbrella” to focus on the main problem of the manuscript.  

-In order to increase the internal validity of the article you may consider the citation of the following articles: the psychological effects of park therapy components on campus landscape preferences, monitoring and landscape quantification of uncontrolled urbanisation in oasis regions: the case of adrar city in algeria.

- The authors may need to justify why this case study (s) and how the findings can be generalizable.

- The conclusion needs to restructure, some essential information which supposes to be in the conclusion part is missing. For example, what are the findings to support the hypothesis of the study? how the author(s) described the contribution of their study to the existing literature? etc., the Conclusion of the study could be much more descriptive in the findings that the author (s) mentioned in the discussion part.

Final Opinion

As indicated in the review, for all the reasons explained above, this reviewer suggests a minor revision.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments on our manuscript. The comments are valuable and helpful. We have read the comments carefully and made corrections. Following the instructions in your letter, we uploaded the revised manuscript file. Modifications in the text use blue and green words, see manuscript for details.

Point 1: Contribution to academia needs to be highlighted in the abstract, introduction and conclusion part of the study. The contribution of the study needs to be explained in such a way that to increase the originality of the study.

Response 1: Research contributions to scholarship have been added to the abstract (see lines 35-40), introduction (see lines 172-180 and 187-195) and conclusion (see lines 574-580).

Point 2: The title of the article doesn't match the first two paragraphs of the introduction. The is no justifiable reason why the authors started with “affordable and accessible housing” without referring to the main theme of the manuscript which is  Old Residential Neighborhoods. 

Response 2: The "affordable and accessible housing" has been adjusted, see lines 47-48. The reason why the first paragraph uses disadvantaged communities instead of Old Residential Neighborhoods is that disadvantaged communities include a wider range of areas from a global perspective, including low-income, Resource-poor communities, etc. The Old Residential Neighborhoods is a unique disadvantaged community in China.

Point 3: Introduction doesn’t have any scientific structure to highlight the problem of the study or the gap in the literature. The introduction of the manuscript is not well-organized author may use the strategy of “ big umbrella” to focus on the main problem of the manuscript.  

Response 3: This paper makes structural adjustments to the introduction part, 1.2 details the research literature on landscape preference, and adds the research gap in the research purpose part (see line 172-180 and line 188-195)

Point 4: In order to increase the internal validity of the article you may consider the citation of the following articles: the psychological effects of park therapy components on campus landscape preferences, monitoring and landscape quantification of uncontrolled urbanisation in oasis regions: the case of adrar city in algeria.

Response 4: Thank you for the article you recommended. I think it is very valuable. Some content is borrowed from the article. See references [2] and [36]

Point 5: The authors may need to justify why this case study (s) and how the findings can be generalizable.

Response 5: 61-89 explain the issues of the old residential neighbourhoods and why this case study is done.Lines 566-573 explain how this study was generalized.

Point 6: The conclusion needs to restructure, some essential information which supposes to be in the conclusion part is missing. For example, what are the findings to support the hypothesis of the study? how the author(s) described the contribution of their study to the existing literature? etc., the Conclusion of the study could be much more descriptive in the findings that the author (s) mentioned in the discussion part.

Response 6: The concluding section has been reorganized to emphasize contributions to the new body of knowledge from an international perspective, see lines 550-580.

Reviewer 4 Report

There are serious methodological deficiencies in this study, so it is difficult to say that the results have universal significance, and there is almost no guiding significance for design practice. So I had to reject the paper.

1. The test sample was woefully inadequate. It is imprecise to show which one is more popular just by looking at a few images that change the landscape elements.

2. Six kinds of landscape have many forms, the design given by the author is not representative. Here are a few examples: in Planting Pattern, if you change the color of a Tree Planting, the result will be very different. Gardening planting doesn't seem like a garden.

3. In the Green space ratio, what are the low, medium, high, and very high standards? It is not scientific to rely on feeling.

4. In the Plant richness what are the low, medium, high and very high standard? It is not scientific to rely on feeling.

5. There are many types of Facilities, and the authors' list is all necessary and not comparable.

6. Pavement is also closely related to colors, patterns, and textures, not just materials.

Author Response

The suggestions made by reviewer 1-3 have been included.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

I still don't think this method is reliable because of the lack of hierarchical criteria. I respect the opinion of the academic editor.