Regional Differences and Influential Factors of Open Public Space in Chinese Cities Based on Big Earth Data

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Abstract: Not comprehensible; English need revisions; Methods and results are not clear;

Introduction:
- lines 49 to 50 it is not clear why is urgent to identify the regional differences of urban open public spaces;
- lines 51 to 79 the review of literature - it is not clear what are the main trends of the researches and what the present paper will bring new; The review of the literature is very limitative to some references;
- lines 91 to 95 represents a description for the research methods;

Material and methods:
- references are missing to explain why the authors selected in the study the data presented in lines 108 to 117;
- descriptive statistics for data mentioned in lines 108 to 117 are missing;
- formulas from lines 120 to 207 need to be better explained based on previous other studies (references are missing). Limits of the approach?

Results:
- the text is unfriendly; it does not point out the main important findings;

Discussion:
- this section fails to stress the importance of the findings for future public policies and also in the frame the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN);

References:
- not all relevant references are used in the study;

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:    Thank you very much for your review report. I uploaded my response as a zip file, containing three files:  a point-by-point response file, a revising version of  manuscript, and a revision accepted version of manuscript.Please see the attachment.     The revision and changes can be found in the revising version of  manuscript. The revision accepted version is the finished version of manuscript. Sincerely yours Penglong Wang  

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

GENERAL REMARK

The paper does a good technical work and release an important information in order to help in the way of UN (2030 Agenda) SDG 11 goal achieve. But in present form may it become a merely descriptive research through different spatial scales analysis and could produce some “misunderstanding” about conclusions.

In my opinion the research needs a more discriminant process of analysis and a bit more index recalculating in relationship with the “cornerstone” of the study: Pi index (Measurement of Urban Public Space). Of course, in UN-Agenda 2030-SDG11 we can find references about highways, roads… as part of Urban Public Open Spaces, but under the Sustainable Perspective, the contribution of all types of roads to sustainable development is not the same, e.g. city street vs.  pedestrian path.

I think that the authors should:

1. Re-calculated Pi in order to see the difference between Pi values with all kinds of roads and only with pedestrian paths. I think that these values could contribute to focus in a more real picture about Sustainability and Open Public Space.
2. Do a deeper discussion about the relationships found (of course, point out these relationships is very important), e.g. Locations with high Open Public Spaces are more attractive to people with high income levels, or locations with high level income residents promote/demand a new city urban management reformulation in order to achieve a more extended Public Open Spaces. Understand the real sense of these relationships could help very much in future decision-making processes about urban management. Of course, the data to run this interpretation is only available for the authors.  g. line 395-397: “as the urban green spaces increases…has attracted a large number of people…”, then, who promote the increment of urban green spaces? Which is the first? A previous management decision to increase the open public spaces or a post citizens-residents demand?

 

SPECIFIC REMARKS

1. Paragraph (lines 100-105) could be avoided, because the following sections are clearly identified.
2. Line 112. I understand that you are talking about 6 primary types of land cover: cultivated land, woodland, …
3. Line 115, at first time, please explain the mean of GDP.
4. Line 151, 156, Theil index, Twz represents intra-regional differences in the eastern, central and western…. Differences in relationship with Pi values? If yes, perhaps may be explicated.
5. Line 167, Which exactly is the spatial weight matrix, How this matrix is calculated?
6. Line 250, …different economic levels. The economic levels are the same explained in line 319, based in per capita GDP? It should be explicated here.
7. Line 261 How you define low value zones, relative value zone,.?

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:    Thank you very much for your review report. I uploaded my response as a zip file, containing three files:  a point-by-point response file, a revising version of  manuscript, and a revision accepted version of manuscript. Please see the attachment.     The revision and changes can be found in the revising version of  manuscript. The revision accepted version is the finished version of manuscript.   Sincerely yours Penglong Wang  

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to the Sustainability journal. Generally, the manuscript fits into the scope of the journal, and the structure respects Scientific Best Practice. However, there are some more comments that require revision, in terms of classification and in terms of format.
The formatting according to the MDPI template is nearly missing
and is needed to be done throughout. Further, the classification
of the manuscript is not an article, but a case report. In the literature review, it is important that the scientific novelty of the work is established through a critical analysis of related literature. References from grey literature and non- peer reviewed should be avoided. The literature research must be improved substantially. How does this work contribute towards the gaps identified? How does it improve upon previous work? It is recommended that a short discussion of the novel contribution of each reference cited be provided to give readers a better understanding of their relevance. Which role might play neural networks in the problem solving process ? Further, the scope of the manuscript must be clearly defined. The methodology must be improved. I strongly recommend to include a flow chart illustrating the steps of the methodology. It should be indicated the source of all figures (also in case they are produced by the authors). Further, the quality of some
figures is rather poor and needs to be improved. The legend is
nearly not readable. In the conclusions, in addition to summarising the actions taken and results, please strengthen the explanation of their significance. It is recommended to use quantitative reasoning comparing with appropriate benchmarks, especially those stemming from previous work.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:    Thank you very much for your review report. I uploaded my response as a zip file, containing three files:  a point-by-point response file, a revising version of  manuscript, and a revision accepted version of manuscript.Please see the attachment.     The revision and changes can be found in the revising version of  manuscript. The revision accepted version is the finished version of manuscript.   Sincerely yours Penglong Wang  

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In the revised version of the paper the authors clarifies some of the issues pointed out in the first stage review. Some of the issues like the insufficient literature review and to a less extend the lack of extensive discussions for the main results are still present. However the topic and also the main results are very relevant for future public policies in the attempt to reach the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) and thus the paper can be accepted for publishing.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I have made reply file, Please see the attachment.

Sincerely yours

Penglong Wang

Author Response File: Author Response.rar

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for providing the revised version of the manuscript. My comments have been consiered. Now are only some smaller comments from my side left. 

Please provide a definition what are super cities, mega cities, larger cities, middle cities, and small cities.

Please give information what are the benchmarks for low until high valuable zones. Do you consider that all type of open space is valuable ? What about green space ? 

What means the black line in figure 8?

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I have made reply file, Please see the attachment.

Sincerely yours

Penglong Wang

Author Response File: Author Response.rar