Measuring Human-Scale Living Convenience through Multi-Sourced Urban Data and a Geodesign Approach: Buildings as Analytical Units

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper consists of a quite interesting research work on measuring human-scale living convenience  through multi-sourced urban data and geodesign approach. The research gives important outcome that could be integrated in urban planning procedure, in the future. However, according to my opinion, some small changes could be implemented in order for the paper to be improved and be easier understandable to everyone. More specific:

 

1. Lines 47-49: Literature can be extended. i.e. Appleyard’s work ( Appleyard, D., 1981. Livable Streets, University of California Press) on livable streets and traffic volumes is a characteristic example that have to be mentioned.
2. 1: Another interested topic that has to be mentioned is the design characteristics of a space (environmental affordances) that urge people to visit a place and to express a specific behavior. You can find interesting information to the work of Bakogiannis and Kyriakidis (Bakogiannis, E. and Kyriakidis, C., 2018. How the physical characteristics may affect the social life of streets in Athens, Greece?, European Journal of Social Sciences, Education and Research, 12(1), 15-23).
3. Lines 54-59: The “15-minute community-life circle” seems to be interesting enough. It could be nice to extend this reference and also make reference to sustainable mobility and environmental friendly policies that UN agenda promotes.
4. Lines 74-76: The term and the procedures of “Geodesign” can be explained, a bit more.
5. Section 2: Carmona, et.al. (Carmona, M., Heath, T., Oc, T. and Tiesdel, S., 2003.Public spaces. Urban spaces. The dimensions of urban design. Architectural Press. U.K.) have proposed some other important parameters has to do with the quality of life. Authors focus only on a specific issue but some brief references can be made (or even to section 1).
6. Line 92: References should be mentioned according to the guidelines.
7. Lines 101/115: Please, move reference [15]. Authors can mention that, after “several researchers”. Authors could also add some more references; one, at least. In Line 115, reference [26] should be presented after “Zhang”.
8. Lines 108-110: Some references could be made in space syntax analysis, taking into account that spatial accessibility is the issue.
9. Unit 4.1: Authors could clarify why this area is a representative one. Why it was selected?
10. Lines 212: How was the data collection maken, i.e. crawler or manually?
11. Lines 225-228: Please, clarify the references according to which, these 4 key measurements were selected.
12. Lines 230-233: Buildings have been perceived as origin and destination of people. Have other places, like urban areas been recognized as origin and destination or a hypothesis has made (ie. Most people leave their home to visit another building)? In other words, PoIs are only buildings?
13. Line 282: Authors have focused to bus station and “other transportation facilities”. It could be crucial to mention which facilities are mentioned. Have sustainable means of transportation been taken into consideration (i.e. bicycle infrastructure, sharing mobility infrastructure, etc)?
14. Section 7: Conclusions could be extended (maybe another one paragraph). The importance of the study should be mentioned. Questions like: How this strategy could be integrated in urban planning strategy in Chinese cities?Those topics can also be mentioned in Section 6 where some references exist.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Rebuttal letter for the reviewer 1 First, we highly appreciate the editor and the anonymous reviewer taking the time to offer us comments and insights related to the paper. The responses are given according to the sequence of the reviewer’s comments. All the revised parts in our manuscript are marked in red for your kind reference. The paper consists of a quite interesting research work on measuring human-scale living convenience through multi-sourced urban data and geodesign approach. The research gives important outcome that could be integrated in urban planning procedure, in the future. However, according to my opinion, some small changes could be implemented in order for the paper to be improved and be easier understandable to everyone. More specific: Comment 1: Lines 47-49: Literature can be extended. i.e. Appleyard’s work ( Appleyard, D., 1981. Livable Streets, University of California Press) on livable streets and traffic volumes is a characteristic example that have to be mentioned. Response: Thanks for this helpful comment. We have added Appleyard’s renowned study in our manuscript as suggested. (Page 2 & Line 55-56). Comment 2: Another interested topic that has to be mentioned is the design characteristics of a space (environmental affordances) that urge people to visit a place and to express a specific behavior. You can find interesting information to the work of Bakogiannis and Kyriakidis (Bakogiannis, E. and Kyriakidis, C., 2018. How the physical characteristics may affect the social life of streets in Athens, Greece?, European Journal of Social Sciences, Education and Research, 12(1), 15-23). Response: Thanks for this helpful comment. We have added the citation of the design characteristics on the social life of streets in (Page 2 & Line 51-53). Moreover, the lack of concerns on design characteristics of the built environment has been claimed in our section 5.4 “limitations and next steps” (Page 16 & Line 483-486). We will try to include this kind of characters in our future studies. Comment 3: Lines 54-59: The “15-minute community-life circle” seems to be interesting enough. It could be nice to extend this reference and also make reference to sustainable mobility and environmental friendly policies that UN agenda promotes. Response: Thanks a lot for this helpful comment. The New Urban Agenda claimed in the Habitat III has been added in our reference list (Page 2 & Line 64-66). Comment 4: Lines 74-76: The term and the procedures of “Geodesign” can be explained, a bit more. Response: Thanks a lot for this helpful comment. Explanations about the term “geodesign” along with an illustration of the geodesign procedures have been added (Page 2 & Line 86-89). Comment 5: Section 2: Carmona, et.al. (Carmona, M., Heath, T., Oc, T. and Tiesdel, S., 2003.Public spaces. Urban spaces. The dimensions of urban design. Architectural Press. U.K.) have proposed some other important parameters has to do with the quality of life. Authors focus only on a specific issue but some brief references can be made (or even to section 1). Response: Thanks a lot for this helpful comment on the improvement of the literature review section. This renowned book has been cited in section 1 (Page 2 & Line 45-48). Comment 6: Line 92: References should be mentioned according to the guidelines. Response: Thanks for your kind reminder. References have been added into the manuscript (Page 3 & Line 104). Comment 7: Lines 101/115: Please, move reference [15]. Authors can mention that, after “several researchers”. Authors could also add some more references; one, at least. In Line 115, reference [26] should be presented after “Zhang”. Response: Many thanks for this detailed comment. First of all, the reference in the previous line 101 has been moved to the place after “several researchers” (Page 3 & Line 112). Second, references have been added in the previous line 115 (Page 3 & Line 131). Moreover, the previous reference [26] (current reference [36]) has been presented after “Zhang” (Page 3 & Line 131). Comment 8: Lines 108-110: Some references could be made in space syntax analysis, taking into account that spatial accessibility is the issue. Response: Thanks a lot for this helpful comment. References about space syntax have been added as suggested (Page 3 & Line 122-126). Moreover, the missing concern of spatial accessibility from the perspective of space syntax has been claimed in the discussion of limitations (Page 16 & Line 479-483). Comment 9: Unit 4.1: Authors could clarify why this area is a representative one. Why it was selected? Response: Many thanks for this valuable comment. Explanations on its representativeness have been added (Page 5 & Line 205-208). Comment 10: Lines 212: How was the data collection maken, i.e. crawler or manually? Response: Thanks for your kind reminder. Web crawling based on Python was applied in our study. Related information has been added (Page 7 & Line 234-235). Comment 11: Lines 225-228: Please, clarify the references according to which, these 4 key measurements were selected. Response: Thanks for your helpful comment. Explanations have been added (Page 8 & Line 249-251). Comment 12: Lines 230-233: Buildings have been perceived as origin and destination of people. Have other places, like urban areas been recognized as origin and destination or a hypothesis has made (ie. Most people leave their home to visit another building)? In other words, PoIs are only buildings? Response: Thanks for pointing it out. The PoIs herein include not only urban facilities inside the buildings but also urban areas like green parks, campuses, rivers, etc. Explanations have been added in our manuscript (Page 8 & Line 262-263). Comment 13: Line 282: Authors have focused to bus station and “other transportation facilities”. It could be crucial to mention which facilities are mentioned. Have sustainable means of transportation been taken into consideration (i.e. bicycle infrastructure, sharing mobility infrastructure, etc)? Response: Many thanks for your kind reminder. The “other transportation facilities” represents bus rail transit and light rail stations. Revisions have been made to clarify the detailed facilities (Page 11 & Line 311). Comment 14: Section 7: Conclusions could be extended (maybe another one paragraph). The importance of the study should be mentioned. Questions like: How this strategy could be integrated in urban planning strategy in Chinese cities? Those topics can also be mentioned in Section 6 where some references exist. Response: Thanks for pointing it out. The revision has been made by claiming the importance of this study in urban planning and management (Page 17 & Line 491-499). Those topics have been mentioned in the previous section 6 (current section 5) as well (Page 16 & Line 459-467). Again, we appreciate all your insightful comments. We would like to express our appreciation for the editor and anonymous reviewer in the acknowledgement for the time and effort you have taken to provide such insightful guidance. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript “Measuring human-scale living convenience through  multi-sourced urban data and geodesign approach:  Buildings as analytical units” addresses an interesting and important research gap.

You should change the structure of your manuscript, see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions

Page line 121: Most of the adopted data involved in the measurement of living convenience are  focused on a macro scale (e.g. population economic census data and public facilities layout). Cite

Page3: Insert materials and methods

3. Conceptual framework: living convenience as accessed amount and diversity of urban facilities: this is part of your materials and methods

Figure 3: Legend is illegible

5.2. Result verification: it  needs minor writing for readability

Discussion: compare your results with previous studies.

Conclusion: it needs major rewriting, please include implications of the work for future research.

There are other minor issues, figure 12 (a) should be a table, and a number of figures are poor quality.

References: important refs are missing.

Author Response

Rebuttal letter for the reviewer 2

First, we highly appreciate the editor and the anonymous reviewer taking the time to offer us comments and insights related to the paper. The responses are given according to the sequence of the reviewer’s comments. All the revised parts in our manuscript are marked as red for your reference.

 

The manuscript “Measuring human-scale living convenience through multi-sourced urban data and geodesign approach:  Buildings as analytical units” addresses an interesting and important research gap.

 

Comment 1: You should change the structure of your manuscript, see https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions

Response: Thanks for this helpful comment. We have re-organized the whole manuscript following your kind instruction. Now the structure of this manuscript contains six sections: 1) introduction, 2) related studies, 3) materials and methods, 4) results, 5) discussions, and 6) conclusions.

 

Comment 2:  Page line 121: Most of the adopted data involved in the measurement of living convenience are focused on a macro scale (e.g. population economic census data and public facilities layout). Cite

Response: Many thanks for your kind suggestion. We have followed your suggestion by adding extra citations to elaborate our view on the spatial scale of data involved in the measurement of living convenience (Page 4 & Line 138-140).

 

Comment 3: Page3: Insert materials and methods

Response: Many thanks for your kind suggestion. We have added the “Materials and Methods” in (Page 3 & Line 145) as suggested.

 

Comment 4: Conceptual framework: living convenience as accessed amount and diversity of urban facilities: this is part of your materials and methods

Response: Many thanks for your kind suggestion. We have placed the conceptual framework part under our new section 3 “Materials and Methods” (Page 3 & Line 146).

 

Comment 5: Figure 3: Legend is illegible

Response: Many thanks for this detailed comment. We have revised the legend in Figure 3 to make it legible (Page 6 & Line 219).

 

Comment 6: 5.2. Result verification: it needs minor writing for readability

Response: Thanks for pointing it out. Revisions have been made to improve its readability (Page 12 & Line 349-358).

 

Comment 7: Discussion: compare your results with previous studies.

Response: Thanks for pointing it out. We have added the comparison between previous studies with this newly developed approach (Page 16 & Line 434-438). Moreover, new research and practical potentials brought by this new analytical approach have been discussed as well (Page 16 & Line 459-467).

 

Comment 8: Conclusion: it needs major rewriting, please include implications of the work for future research.

Response: Thanks for pointing it out. A major revision has been made in the conclusion section. The contribution of this study and the implications of the work for future research have been added (Page 17 & Line 491-510).

 

Comment 9: There are other minor issues, figure 12 (a) should be a table, and a number of figures are poor quality.

Response: Many thanks for this detailed comment. Figure 12 (a) has been revised as a new Table 3 (Page 15 & Line 421). Meanwhile, we have reproduced the Figure 2 and Figure 4 to improve their quality (Page 6 & Line 210; Page 7 & Line 232).

 

Comment 10: References: important refs are missing.

Response: Thanks for this helpful comment. Another reviewer also mentioned the missing of references. Many important references have been added, and the total number of references has increased from 39 to 49. It is also our pleasure to add extra references in our next round of revision if the reviewer feels necessary.

 

Again, we appreciate all your insightful comments. We would like to express our appreciation for the editor and anonymous reviewer in the acknowledgment for the time and effort you have taken to provide such insightful guidance. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This study is meaningful because it presents a data-informed method to measure the human-scale living convenience using multi-sourced urban data and geo-design techniques. But I would like to request some revisions as follows:

First, it is unclear how to construct the conceptual framework for measuring human-scale living convenience. Although the authors mentioned in chapter 3 that the conceptual framework of this article was based on Ewing and Cervero’s 5D theory and Marcus’ spatial capital theory, readers will want to know more specific rationale and logic on it.

Second, in Equation 1, it is understood that the units of measurement of each element are different. Because Ni (relative number of urban facilities) has a relatively large value than Vi (diversity of urban facilities) and Ti (accessibility of transportation facilities), measurement would be distorted by the magnitude of Vi value. Thus, standardization is likely to be necessary.

Third, it is necessary to provide a more detailed explanation of how the Hadoop and arcpy methods were used.

Lastly, it is unclear what the sentence, “the 23 classes are related to addressing information”, means on line 215.

Author Response

Rebuttal letter for the reviewer 3

First, we highly appreciate the editor and the anonymous reviewer taking the time to offer us comments and insights related to the paper. The responses are given according to the sequence of the reviewer’s comments. All the revised parts in our manuscript are marked in red for your kind reference.

 

This study is meaningful because it presents a data-informed method to measure the human-scale living convenience using multi-sourced urban data and geo-design techniques. But I would like to request some revisions as follows:

 

Comment 1: First, it is unclear how to construct the conceptual framework for measuring human-scale living convenience. Although the authors mentioned in chapter 3 that the conceptual framework of this article was based on Ewing and Cervero’s 5D theory and Marcus’ spatial capital theory, readers will want to know more specific rationale and logic on it.

Response: Thanks for your kind help. A heavy revision has been made at section 3.1 to make it clear (Page 4 & Line 150-163).

 

Comment 2: Second, in Equation 1, it is understood that the units of measurement of each element are different. Because Ni (relative number of urban facilities) has a relatively large value than Vi (diversity of urban facilities) and Ti (accessibility of transportation facilities), measurement would be distorted by the magnitude of Vi value. Thus, standardization is likely to be necessary.

Response: Many thanks for this valuable comment. Yes, the units of measurement of each element are different. Actually, we have tried the calculation approach using normalized results of the three key elements. However, the accuracy is lower than current approach. We guess the relative number of urban facilities does play a more important role compared with the rest two elements, which matches with our daily experience to certain extent. A short explanation has been added in our manuscript (Page 5 & Line 195-199). Considering the length of this manuscript, we did not add the detailed calculation using normalized results in this round of revision. If the reviewer feel it is necessary, we could add in the related text and figures in next round of revision.

 

Comment 3: Third, it is necessary to provide a more detailed explanation of how the Hadoop and arcpy methods were used.

Response: Thanks a lot for your kind reminder. Detailed explanations have been added (Page 12 & Line 332-338).

 

Comment 4: Lastly, it is unclear what the sentence, “the 23 classes are related to addressing information”, means on line 215.

Response: Thanks for pointing it out. The remaining three of the 23 classes are addresses, entrances and exits, and indoor facilities. We have revised that sentence to make it clear (Page 7 & Line 234-235).

 

Again, we appreciate all your insightful comments. We would like to express our appreciation for the editor and anonymous reviewer in the acknowledgement for the time and effort you have taken to provide such insightful guidance. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been improved.

Author Response

Rebuttal letter for the reviewer 2

We highly appreciate the editor and the anonymous reviewer taking the time to offer us comments and insights related to the paper.

Comment 1: Moderate English changes required

Response: Thanks a lot for your kind suggestion. A language proof-reading has been made by MDPI English Editting Service.

 

Again, we appreciate all your insightful comments. We would like to express our appreciation for the editor and anonymous reviewer in the acknowledgment for the time and effort you have taken to provide such insightful guidance. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx