From Landscapes to Bonds: Exploring the Influencing Mechanism of Community Parks on Social Integration

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study is about social integration of immigrants through multicultural policies and urban design tools (landscaping). It provides a good understanding of the context of the study. And generally, the study is well explained. 

However, I have the following concerns:

1- The Title is to be re-written in fewer words. It does not look appropriate. 

2-  How do you justify the number of sample group (respondents)? (400 migrants of about 5 million). 

[I have to check the sampling formulation (method) to be convinced about this number in your study.]

3- Are all the migrants from the same background? Have you noted any difference in their social integration process considering their origin? In other words, are there any similarities [climate, culture, religion, language, etc.] between their own country and the new home?

 

Thank you.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 To evaluate the function of social integration of migrants and local residents, the authors introduced subjective affective factors including landscape perception, destination loyalty and place attachment for correlation analysis with social integration. Nine hypotheses are developed based on using survey questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modelling to validate the influence mechanism of public parks for the relationship among the factors and social integration. The authors found that destination loyalty and place attachment have significant influences over social integration. While landscape perception does not have directly and significantly influence over social integration, it has influence on the other two factors.

Social welfare is the most basic dimension for urban inhabitants. Most migrant workers and their families in China cannot enjoy much social advantages in cities, including education, pension and even park ticket discounts. It is harsh talking social integration of them on environment dimension only. I suggest the authors include some points in their questionnaire on how migrant workers mentally feel on these factors which should be overlooked

In addition:

1.      Western countries may not be an appropriate term in this paper.

2.      The data was collected between March and June 2022. Are there any consideration of influence of COVID-19 regulations in the research area during that period?

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper investigates the social integration of social parks by examining landscape perception, place attachment, and destination loyalty. The study uncovers the interrelationships between these factors and offers design considerations to enhance social integration. However, some points could be improved:

- Destination loyalty needs to be defined more clearly. For example, is it related to the uniqueness of the park or something else?

·        The paper needs to explain how these factors were selected for investigation and why other factors, such as cultural links and motivations for park use, were not included.

·        More details about the parks in the study area are needed, such as their size, catchment areas, and users. It would also be helpful to include photos of the parks and describe the primary users' demographics.

·   -  Cultural influences and community engagement in the design process and implementation are highly effective in contributing to the topic. This aspect could be explored further in future research.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

In recent years, more and more experts have focused on issues related to urban public space. However, large areas of the interactions among interconnected and mutually constrained affective effects are still being extensively developed, reclaimed, and encroached upon.The manuscript by Hu et al.utilized structural equation modeling to construct the influence mechanism of community parks on social integration.This study aims to explore the methods and approaches of social integration using urban community parks as a carrier.And this useful work provided theoretical support and a reference for the design of social integration-oriented urban community parks.These findings have implications for urban planning and management.

However, the manuscript needs significant improvement before it could meet the standards required for a high-quality international journal.Some details about the method and statement in this study still need to be improved. Comments are as follows:

Line 8:“The rapid increase...” the should not be bold.Pay attention to the writing rules.

Line 82: The study of the factors of urban community parks that influence social integration is not comprehensive enough.Therefore, it is recommended to make this part a separate section to avoid confusion with the following research content.

Line 184:Is the effect of the Landscape perception、Destination loyalty and Place attachment only singular？Whether there some interaction between them？

Line 224:The sum of the terms in Table 2 is not 100%.And what is the difference between two gender?

Line 226:Some of the methods used in the data analysis section and measurement model section such as Structural Equation Modeling and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin should be discussed for their accuracy and advantages over other methods.Therefore, it is recommended to add the latest research results on evaluation methods.

Line241-242:“The results indicate that all scales had acceptable levels of reliability, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients above 0.7. Furthermore, the validity of the data was evaluated using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and Bartlett's test of sphericity. The KMO values ranged from 0.787 to 0.825, and the Bartlett's test was significance at p < 0.05, indicating good structural validity and suitability for factor analysis.”Provide reference.

Line281:Indicate the meaning of ** and *** in the figure 3.

Reference:It is recommended to cite some new studies and related studies in this journal.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for the corrections. And I am convinced with your responses. 

Regards.