Food Delivery Couriers and Their Interaction with Urban Public Space: A Case Study of a Typical “Takeaway Community” in the Wuhan Optics Valley Area
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a very interesting study. It addressed an increasingly important issue that requires more empirical investigation. I'd like the research design given its exploratory nature. However, although this is an exploratory study, the sample seems to be very small. Small sample could result in bias and missing information. This could further lead to concern of generalizability of the findings. These issues need better justification. Overall, the paper is free from grammatical errors and is easy to read.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We are very grateful to you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Food delivery couriers and their interaction with urban public space: a case study of a typical “takeaway community” in Wuhan Optics Valley area” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-1652867) so carefully. Those comments are all valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. And we have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Comment 1: However, although this is an exploratory study, the sample seems to be very small. Small sample could result in bias and missing information. This could further lead to concern of generalizability of the findings. These issues need better justification.
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. Firstly, we conducted in-depth interviews with each interviewee, so the amount of information collected from each sample is sufficient, and secondly, we hope that by conducting an in-depth and complete study of this one case, we can provide a research reference for other regions facing similar social phenomena.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript presents an analysis of food-delivery couriers’ behavioral patterns in the public space of Wuhan Optics Valley Young City. The paper is interdisciplinary – connecting social sciences, architecture and urban planning, transport and environmental psychology, and economy. This is one of its main merits, along with the novelty of the topic and fresh insight into the novel functioning of the city space. On the other hand, many methodological flaws lower the value of the paper, and authors give trivial results in some places. However, I would give the authors a chance to correct the manuscript because I can see more potential in the gathered data. Therefore, I vote for another major revision.
Additional remarks:
- The topic is new and interesting, the authors show some research gap (I agree with it), and in my opinion, this is a material for a good paper but there is much work to do to improve it.
- I did not detect any plagiarism and self-citations but I am not able to check Chinese language articles.
- I do not feel qualified to judge the English language and style of the manuscript as I am not an English native speaker. However, I detected some strange expressions in it and many punctuation errors. Some parts were hard to understand (details in the comments for the authors). Therefore, I recommended English native speaker correction.
- I can see some connections of the topic with sustainability issues but they are not justified in the manuscript.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We are very grateful to you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Food delivery couriers and their interaction with urban public space: a case study of a typical “takeaway community” in Wuhan Optics Valley area” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-1652867) so carefully. Those comments are all valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. And we have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Comment 1: Many methodological flaws lower the value of the paper, and authors give trivial results in some places.
Response: Thanks for your valuable comment. When performing field investigations and analyzing the space and activity patterns, we did use systematic ways to carry it out. Fortunately, thanks to your valuable reviews, we realized that we put little effort to elaborate the methods we used to do the research. In the revised version, we introduced our study methods, like Jan Gehl’s PSPL (Public Space and Public Life Survey) research method, including an on-the-spot investigation method, interview method, map marking method and on-site counting method, and how we used the method in the investigation and research. As to the second question, we try to improve on that by giving stronger conclusions and more supporting in the revised version.
Comment 2: The topic is new and interesting, the authors show some research gap (I agree with it), and in my opinion, this is a material for a good paper but there is much work to do to improve it.
Response: Thanks for your advise. We hope to cover the research gap and contribute some innovative research contents to it. The relationship between different groups, like gig workers, city dwellers, city management departments and their interaction with public space is notably important for future sustainable development of the city. In the revised version, we further improved on our research in this aspect and hope to reach some innovative conclusions.
Comments 3: I did not detect any plagiarism and self-citations but I am not able to check Chinese language articles.
Response: Thanks for the comment. We strictly followed the norms for research reference and quoted both Chinese and English articles using standard procedures. We checked again for both Chinses and English articles and there was no plagiarism and self-citations.
Comment 4: I do not feel qualified to judge the English language and style of the manuscript as I am not an English native speaker. However, I detected some strange expressions in it and many punctuation errors. Some parts were hard to understand (details in the comments for the authors). Therefore, I recommended English native speaker correction.
(The language editing certification is in the attachment)
Response: Thank you for your question. We realized that there were problems with the writing style of the manuscript. We used the language editing service provided by MDPI in this revision to make adjustments in grammar, writing style, and article format.
Comment 5: .I can see some connections of the topic with sustainability issues but they are not justified in the manuscript.
Response: Thanks for your question. We realized that it is important to further elaborate on the connections between our topic and sustainability issues, therefore we specified on it in our revised version. The relationship between different groups, like gig workers, city dwellers, city management departments and their interaction with public space is notably important for future sustainable development of the city. And the study of a typical community and city area could be referential for many similar districts on a larger scale.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The work is an interesting attempt at a topical issue, however, does not manage to clarify the research gap and wider implications. To start with, the literature synthesis is not comprehensive and reads rather dispersed, some critical works are not cited (see below, samples*). The writing style needs to be revised and proofread thoroughly as it is very difficult to read most sections. A thematic analysis could benefit the analysis since both the findings and analysis sections are currently reading descriptive; they are mostly reporting the findings from the interviews instead of critically engaging with the data to be able to make recommendations in the end. The rationales behind the methodological tools and sample selection need further explanation. Neither the managerial nor policy implications are clear in the current draft, this is very important to address. To improve, the author/s need to first clarify what the research objectives are and identify the research gap before proposing the motivation of the work early on. A thorough revision of the work would benefit most sections and especially, the findings/ analysis needs to adopt a critical review tone instead of sounding descriptive only.
sample works* :
https://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/94515/
https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---ilo-beijing/documents/publication/wcms_757923.pdf
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022185619865480
all the best!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We are very grateful to you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Food delivery couriers and their interaction with urban public space: a case study of a typical “takeaway community” in Wuhan Optics Valley area” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-1652867) so carefully. Those comments are all valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. And we have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Comment 1: To start with, the literature synthesis is not comprehensive and reads rather dispersed, some critical works are not cited (see below, samples*).
Response:
We are so grateful for your kind question. We have reorganized the structure of the literature synthesis, and the critical works you provided were so helpful that we cited them in the article, and we also added some key articles that we had previously overlooked.
Comment 2: The writing style needs to be revised and proofread thoroughly as it is very difficult to read most sections.
Response:
Thank you for your question. We realized that there were problems with the writing style of the manuscript. We used the language editing service provided by MDPI in this revision to make adjustments in grammar, writing style, and article format.
(The language editing certification is in the attachment)
Comments 3: A thematic analysis could benefit the analysis since both the findings and analysis sections are currently reading descriptive; they are mostly reporting the findings from the interviews instead of critically engaging with the data to be able to make recommendations in the end.
Response:
We are so grateful for your kind question. In this round of revision, we rethink and adjust the analysis and conclusion part of the manuscript. We try to synthesize the result of existing studies and our research to propose a new perspective for the construction and management of urban public space in the context of digital labor platforms and the gig economy.
Comment 4: The rationales behind the methodological tools and sample selection need further explanation.
Response:
Thank you for raising this question. In terms of the sample we chose, Optics Valley youth city is a microcosm of takeaway industry development in contemporary Chinese cities, and this community is a representative research object as it gathers many takeaway restaurants and food delivery couriers. In addition, we conducted complete and in-depth interviews with each courier in our study, and obtained a sufficient amount of information from each sample. Through such a case study, we hope to provide a research reference for other areas facing similar social phenomena.
In terms of research methodology, we have explained more systematically in this revision the research method we used, which is the Public Space & Public Life Survey (PSPL). PSPL is a method for assessing the quality of urban public space and the state of people's public life, including an on-the-spot investigation method, interview method, map marking method and on-site counting method, to understand the community activities and behavior characteristics of food delivery couriers in the public space, to explore the relationship between the material environment and food delivery couriers’ work and life through qualitative and quantitative analyses, and to accurately reveal the public space strategy of food delivery couriers in takeaway community.
Comment 5: Neither the managerial nor policy implications are clear in the current draft, this is very important to address.
Response:
Thank you for your question. We have reorganized the conclusion of our study in this revision to provide clearer thinking on policy and urban management. We propose valuable urban public space management policies based on our findings, as well as policies for food delivery couriers
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you for your great efforts made to address the review comments. The paper has improved in terms of literature review, organization of presentation, and discussion and conclusions. Given the nature of this study e.g., small sample, case study style, there are some limitations which cannot be avoided but can be addressed in the future studies. I feel the is study contributes certain values to the topic and may benefit the readership of Sustainability.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We are very grateful to you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Food delivery couriers and their interaction with urban public space: a case study of a typical “takeaway community” in Wuhan Optics Valley area” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-1652867) so carefully again. We are pleased to receive your approval for our study. We have explained the limitations of the study in this round of revision, and we hope to conduct further research in the future.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript presents an analysis of food-delivery couriers’ behavioral patterns in the public space of Wuhan Optics Valley Young City. The paper is cross-disciplinary – connecting social sciences, architecture and urban planning, transport and environmental psychology, and economy. This is one of its main merits, along with the novelty of the topic and fresh insight into the novel functioning of the city space. The paper is interesting. On the other hand, there are some errors and gaps in the structure of the text and technical issues. I put detailed comments below (numbers mean lines of the text).
Methodological issues:
The research method is not described sufficiently in the ‘methods’ section. The following elements are missing: selection of the sample (interviewed persons), methods of data recording, methods of verification and control of the results (how was the quality of the study taken care of?), how the results were described, procedures for the interpretation of data collected. E.g. Uwe Flick, John Creswell, and John Lofland et al. give detailed guidance on qualitative research methods and their description. Do table 2 and lines 364-386 belong to ‘results’ or ‘method’ sections?
Only men were interviewed during the study. The question arises if there are any women food delivery couriers in this area.
186, 187: ‘Some new urban problems and spatial conflicts’. What problems and conflicts? Do you have any references?
199-201: ‘Finally, the optics Valley Youth City community has a high plot ratio, large resident population, complex population composition, and there is limited public space inside the community.’ Please give more specific, quantitative data and references.
197: ‘the most food delivery couriers’. How do you know it?
It would be good to give some photos of the area in the ‘Study area’ section (or reference to the supplementary materials). They would present international readers with the city space.
None references to previously published research are described in the ‘Discussion’, none limitations of the study and further research directions. Additionally, in this section, there are opinions and actions of the Chinese government, managers, and professionals described but without any references or specific data.
Technical issues:
Figure 1 is hard to read. The letters are too small. Figures 6, 8, and 9 have very small pictures (and the plan with the legend) – hard to see.
The term ‘form’ in figure 9 is strange. I would suggest changing it to e.g. ‘diagram’.
It would be good to accompany figures 4,5 with photos of some examples of the space.
It would be easier to find study results if these sections had this basic notion in the title(-s).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We are very grateful to you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Food delivery couriers and their interaction with urban public space: a case study of a typical “takeaway community” in Wuhan Optics Valley area” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-1652867) so carefully again. Those comments are all valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. And we have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Comment 1: The research method is not described sufficiently in the ‘methods’ section. The following elements are missing: selection of the sample (interviewed persons), methods of data recording, methods of verification and control of the results (how was the quality of the study taken care of?), how the results were described, procedures for the interpretation of data collected.
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. We examined the missing elements in the section and try to complement the structure of the study method section. We hope that in this revised version, we could exhibit all the investigation and study processes in detail.
Comment 2: Do table 2 and lines 364-386 belong to ‘results’ or ‘method’ sections?
Response: We are grateful for your question. In our writing framework, table 2 and line 364-386 are neither ‘results’ or ‘method’ sections in our conception. It is supposed to be an introduction of the analysis model in the following part, elaborating on how we came up to this model based on Cresswell’s former work and there’s also a brief introduction of the contents in the analysis model.
Comments3: Only men were interviewed during the study. The question arises if there are any women food delivery couriers in this area.
Response: We are grateful for your pointing out this issue. It is indeed a limitation in our research. In the investigation process, we noted that the overwhelming majority of couriers are male, no matter it was in Optics Valley Youth City or in the preliminary investigation, at other courier gathering points. Meanwhile, as our research concerns mostly about couriers’ activity patterns and space elements, the issue of gender doesn’t necessarily play a decisive role in the analysis results. However, we would like to try furthering our research based on a gender-based perspective in the future, which would also be an interesting point.
Comment4: ‘Some new urban problems and spatial conflicts’. What problems and conflicts? Do you have any references?
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. We have specified the problems and conflicts in this community in this revision, including traffic congestion and poor quality of public space, and added references to relevant materials.
Comment5: ‘Finally, the optics Valley Youth City community has a high plot ratio, large resident population, complex population composition, and there is limited public space inside the community.’ Please give more specific, quantitative data and references.
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. We have specified the data of this community in this revision. “The total building area of this community is 209,500 m2 and the plot ratio is over 5.0. There are 8358 dwelling units in this community. And more than 60 takeaway restaurants are concentrated in this community.”
Comment6: ‘the most food delivery couriers’. How do you know it?
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. On the one hand, this information comes from our pre-research, and on the other hand, we have added references about this issue.
Comments7: It would be good to give some photos of the area in the ‘Study area’ section (or reference to the supplementary materials). They would present international readers with the city space.
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question, we have added some photos we took in the community in this revision.
Comments8: None references to previously published research are described in the ‘Discussion’, none limitations of the study and further research directions. Additionally, in this section, there are opinions and actions of the Chinese government, managers, and professionals described but without any references or specific data.
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. We are aware of the problems in the "Discussion". In this round of revision, we have detailed the limitations of our study in both time and space, as well as further research we can do in the future. We have also added references to some of the previously published studies and official data mentioned in this section.
Comments9: Technical issues
Figure 1 is hard to read. The letters are too small. Figures 6, 8, and 9 have very small pictures (and the plan with the legend) – hard to see.
The term ‘form’ in figure 9 is strange. I would suggest changing it to e.g. ‘diagram’.
It would be good to accompany figures 4,5 with photos of some examples of the space.
It would be easier to find study results if these sections had this basic notion in the title(-s).
Response: Thanks for reminding us the flaws in figures. In the revised version, we improved on the readability of figures. Some of the letters are amplified to make them easier to read, and some photos are added onto the figures to provide examples. We hope these changes can make our figures more clear and more readable.
Reviewer 3 Report
Clearly, the revised version is an improvement. However, section 5 needs rewriting in some parts - there are aspects that are being repeated and at times, explained in a highly descriptive fashion (and reads too simple) which needs to be avoided. The authors need to adopt an analytical writing style, if not entirely critical in this section, which would benefit the work further. The other suggestion is for the author/s need to revisit parts of the work where central arguments are made to ensure that they are clearly presented, maintained throughout thoroughly, and the readers are often reminded for consistency purposes.
Author Response
We are very grateful to you for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Food delivery couriers and their interaction with urban public space: a case study of a typical “takeaway community” in Wuhan Optics Valley area” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-1652867) so carefully again. Those comments are all valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. And we have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Comment 1: However, section 5 needs rewriting in some parts - there are aspects that are being repeated and at times, explained in a highly descriptive fashion (and reads too simple) which needs to be avoided. The authors need to adopt an analytical writing style, if not entirely critical in this section, which would benefit the work further.
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. In the revised version, we deleted the repeated parts in the section, and we try to make the writing more analytical by introducing typology in the analysis process. Meanwhile, we simplified the description parts, putting more emphasis on ‘why this is so’ than on ‘what is the pattern’.
Comment 2: The other suggestion is for the author/s need to revisit parts of the work where central arguments are made to ensure that they are clearly presented, maintained throughout thoroughly, and the readers are often reminded for consistency purposes.
Response: We are so grateful for your kind question. In this round of revisions, we made our central point clearer, "The relationship between food delivery couriers and urban public space is two-way; the characteristics of urban space influence the behavior of couriers, while couriers, as a new group of gig workers in the city, are always bringing changes to urban public space." We present in the Introduction section that “Our study focuses on the relationship between food delivery couriers and urban public space, are their behaviors influenced by urban public space, and are they reshaping it? That is, whether such a two-way influence relationship exists and in what way is our main question in this study.” We do our research and analysis about this central argument in section 4 and section 5. In the end, we present our central argument in section 6 and section 7 that “the relationship between food delivery couriers and urban public space is two-way; the characteristics of urban public space influence the behavior of couriers, while couriers, as a new group of gig workers in the city, are always involved in reshaping the public space with the city.”
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for your answers and corrections.
