A Study on the Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Area Identification of High-Quality Urban Development in the Central Region
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please find the comments in the attached file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Language should be improved
Author Response
We feel great thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Study on the Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Areas Identification of High-Quality Urban Development in the Central Region” (ID: 2437570). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope to meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in blue in the paper. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
General Comments: I would like to thank the editor of the Sustainability Journal for providing me with an opportunity to review the paper. The title of the study seems interesting, Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Areas Identification of High-Quality Urban Development.
Main Points:
1. The paper's abstract is too weak and does not provide any significance for the study's findings.
2. In the abstract, before the layout of your purpose, try to add a sentence at the beginning with a brief background information description. There are too many simple conclusive statements in the abstract, which are well-known to people who are involved in this area. You should first lay out a background information description.
3. I found a weakness in the identification of the research gap identification paragraph. There are many studies cited in the papers that have already been published in the literature. How the author distinguished this research has significance.
4. The methodology section is not well defined, It should be clear and concise so the reader can understand what actually happing in the methodology.
5. The quality of the Figure is poor, it needs to be revised.
6. The results section is confusing and repeats the same results; Furthermore, I suggest using reader-friendly language so the reader can easily understand and get more benefit from the research output.
7. The conclusion section is too large and needed to be precise.
Minor Points:
I found various grammatical mistakes in the manuscript.
It is recommended that a native speaker must review the manuscript before publication.
Moreover, the authors suggested citing a recent study on a similar topic.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-021-0151-5
It is recommended that a native speaker must review the manuscript before publication.
Author Response
We feel great thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Study on the Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Areas Identification of High-Quality Urban Development in the Central Region” (ID: 2437570). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope to meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in blue in the paper. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
General Remarks:
The manuscript focused on high-quality development in the central region of China. The authors aim to construct a system of indicators from five perspectives: economic growth, efficiency enhancement, coordinated regional development, ecological governance, and sharing developmental achievements. The study based on an analysis of spatiotemporal evolution, used the Dagum Gini coefficient to assess the gap in high-quality urban development in the central region, followed by dimensional clustering and analysis of development gaps in different cities. The article finally revealed some interesting results, but the content and structure of the article still need improvement. Additionally, the innovation points of this article are not prominent enough.
Major Comments:
1. Improve your English writing throughout the manuscript, preferably with the help of a native speaker.
2. The introduction of the article dedicates a significant amount of space to discussing the connotation of high-quality development and China's emphasis on the central region. Particularly, the second paragraph appears to be somewhat redundant, and it could be summarized more concisely as a background introduction.
3. Adding a research area map in section 2.2 would better illustrate the geographical advantages of the central region.
4. Why was the quartile method used in section 4.2 instead of the natural breaks method? The natural breaks method is commonly employed in data classification and geographic data visualization to better showcase the variations and differences in the data.
5. The conclusion section appears to be too lengthy. The conclusion should not simply repeat the results but rather be concise and readable. It should highlight the significance and innovative aspects of the research, focusing on the research objectives and questions.
Author Response
We feel great thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Study on the Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Areas Identification of High-Quality Urban Development in the Central Region” (ID: 2437570). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope to meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in blue in the paper. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have satisfactory addressed all comments of the previous review, and the paper has significantly improved. I think it is ready for its publication.
The English has been significantly improved.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers 1:
We feel great thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Study on the Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Areas Identification of High-Quality Urban Development in the Central Region” (ID: 2437570). Thank you for your encouraging comments! We would like to thank you again for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which have significantly improved the presentation of our manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
The revised manuscript has been improved and has the potential to be published. However, the author needs to cite the following recent studies on the same research area.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054093
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-021-0151-5
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108995
https://doi.org/10.3390/w14040512
Author Response
Dear Reviewers 2:
We feel great thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Study on the Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Areas Identification of High-Quality Urban Development in the Central Region” (ID: 2437570). Thank you for your valuable suggestions. We sincerely appreciate the valuable comments. According to your suggestion, we have checked the literature carefully and cited the following recent studies on the same research area. The reference has been added to line 76th-78th, line 191th-193th, and line 234th-237th.
“Among them, the literature is mostly constructed based on the five development concepts and growth quality index [14-17].”
“With the increasingly obvious reality of resource constraints, worsening environ-mental pollution, and severe ecological governance [31,32].”
“With higher accuracy and credibility, the method not only avoids the subjective de-pendence of expert scoring method, but also overcomes the limitations of the principal component analysis method such as being susceptible to the interference of outliers [38]. “
Reviewer 3 Report
In the author's response, most of the issues in the manuscript have been resolved, but I still have one suggestion. The introduction and conclusion sections are too long. You can extract some key points and remove unnecessary parts.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers 3:
We feel great thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Study on the Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Problem Areas Identification of High-Quality Urban Development in the Central Region” (ID: 2437570). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope to meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in blue in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to your comments are as flowing:
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
