The Impact of Smart City Policies on City Resilience: An Evaluation of 282 Chinese Cities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis article brings an important discussion about the perception of urban resilience and how it can be associated to the adoption of smart city initiatives. In this context, 4 "domains" are considered: social elasticity, economic elasticity, infrastructure elasticity and ecological elasticity. Data from several Chinese cities are used to support deeper discussions.
Although the article addresses an important subject, it has several flaws that must be corrected before the article is seriously considered for publication.
Major corrections:
- The last sentence in the abstract section has a problem with semantics. It makes no sense and must be rewritten
- In the Introduction section, first paragraph: what is "sustainable sexual health development of the planet"?
- In the first paragraph of the Introduction section, the last sentence also makes no sense and must be rewritten.
- There are a lot of bad sentences, with repetitions:
Example: In view of the urgency of these problems, this paper focuses on solving the above problems...
There are others.
- Overall, the Introduction section os poorly written. It has only 2 paragraphs that do not cover what is expected from a Introduction of a scientific paper: problem scope, relevance, challenges, what will be done, and structure of paper.
And it gets even worse: the Introduction has NO REFERENCES, which is a major flaw!
- About references, there are some missing subjects that could further support this article. Some fields that should be cited when constructing a narrative around urban resilience are:
Emergency management
Adaptive smart urban systems
Urban sustainability
Equitability and urban resilience
These areas should be discussed, since they are strongly related to urban resilience. Papers covering these subjects could support the improvement of the Introduction section.
- The sentence "Urban resilience assessment is divided into two dimensions: disaster risk management and urban sustainable development" is not supported by references. Therefore, this is a claim from the authors that has to be discussed. Actually, I do not agree with the authors because there are other factors. Improve this.
- Section 2, Literature Review, is not well organised. Information is just scattered over the section, and discussions are scarce. I suggest introducing a comparison table, classifying and/or organising the review works.
- The domains "social elasticity, economic elasticity, infrastructure elasticity and ecological elasticity", mainly considered from section 3, are never formally defined. Authors should correct this.
- Subsection 3.1 makes the same mistakes of the previous section 2. There are large blocks of texts with low connection and shallow discussions. The text is superficial and it seems to be created by LLM-based tools like chatGPT.
- The conclusion of section 3.1 is weak. The claim that "In general, smart city pilot policies promote the overall resilience" is not supported by the performed discussions.
- The hypothesis H1, H2 and H3 should be better explained. A better idea to improve clearness is to introduce them on the beginning of section 3 (consider an itemize constructor)
- Actually, the paper starts to make sense only after section 4, which is a strong indication that the article has to be rewritten for improvement. After that section, the narrative and discussions improve significantly.
- Section 6 should discuss the results (and recommendations) in light with the three previously defined hypotheses.
- The article needs a Conclusion section
Some minor corrections
Avoid using contractions, like "it's" in the abstract.
The expression "can be made more adaptable" should be rewritten as "can become more adaptable"
Some sentences start with lowercase. Revise
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageA complete revision of the text would be worth it.
Author Response
Response to the comments of Reviewer 1
Thank you for your kind suggestion.
Q1: The last sentence in the abstract section has a problem with semantics. It makes no sense and must be rewritten.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. The last sentence of the summary section has been rewritten.
Q2: In the Introduction section, first paragraph: what is "sustainable sexual health development of the planet"? In the first paragraph of the Introduction section, the last sentence also makes no sense and must be rewritten.
Response: Thank you very much for your constructive feedback. We have rechecked the entire text to avoid questions like “sustainable sexual health development of the planet”. We have also decided to use MDPI's authoring services to ensure the accuracy of this article. In addition, we have rewritten the last sentence of the first paragraph of the introduction.
Q3: There are a lot of bad sentences, with repetitions: Example: In view of the urgency of these problems, this paper focuses on solving the above problems...There are others.
Response: Thank you very much for your constructive feedback. We have rechecked the full article to avoid any duplication issues. Also have addressed “Example: In view of the urgency of these problems, this paper focuses on solving the above problems...”.
Q4: Overall, the Introduction section is poorly written. It has only 2 paragraphs that do not cover what is expected from a Introduction of a scientific paper: problem scope, relevance, challenges, what will be done, and structure of paper. And it gets even worse: the Introduction has NO REFERENCES, which is a major flaw!
Response: Thank you very much for your constructive feedback. We have re-examined the structure of the introductory section. The structure section of the article was added. It is now organized as follows: the first paragraph sets out the context in which urban resilience is being emphasized, answering the question of why urban resilience is being emphasized and the strategic measures being taken in international and Chinese contexts. The second paragraph describes the application and conceptual differences of urban resilience in the context of emergency management, adaptive smart city systems, urban sustainability, and equity and urban resilience. Based on this, the research questions of this paper are presented. The third paragraph describes the structure of the article and the research content of each part. In addition, we add necessary references, including aspects such as the United Nations Global Sustainability Summit and Global 100 Resilient Cities.
Q5: About references, there are some missing subjects that could further support this article. Some fields that should be cited when constructing a narrative around urban resilience are: Emergency management, Adaptive smart urban systems, Urban sustainability, Equitability and urban resilience. These areas should be discussed, since they are strongly related to urban resilience. Papers covering these subjects could support the improvement of the Introduction section.
Response: Thank you very much for your constructive feedback. We have read articles in the areas mentioned above and have found that it really supports the improvement of the introductory part of the article. We have added this section and cited relevant references to support the theory. Once again, we express our gratitude.
Q6: The sentence "Urban resilience assessment is divided into two dimensions: disaster risk management and urban sustainable development" is not supported by references. Therefore, this is a claim from the authors that has to be discussed. Actually, I do not agree with the authors because there are other factors. Improve this.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We have carefully read the relevant authoritative literature and have drawn on the important categorizations therein. In this paper, in this section of the literature review, the first paragraph combs through the evolution of the definition of urban resilience. The second paragraph categorizes the relevant studies on urban resilience. It is categorized into two categories: influencing factors and acting mechanisms. In terms of influencing factors it is further categorized into single level and system-wide level. And in the fifth paragraph of the literature review, the relevant research results in terms of action mechanism are added.
Q7: Section 2, Literature Review, is not well organised. Information is just scattered over the section, and discussions are scarce. I suggest introducing a comparison table, classifying and/or organising the review works.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We refreshed the literature review section. The first paragraph is a definitional study of urban resilience. The second paragraph is the categorization of urban resilience related studies, including the two parts of influencing factors and acting mechanisms. Among them, the influencing factors are further categorized into the single dimension of urban resilience and the system-wide dimension. The third paragraph is a compendium of research results on the single dimension aspect of urban resilience influencing factors. The fourth paragraph summarizes the research results on the system-wide dimension of urban resilience influencing factors. The fifth paragraph is a compendium of research results on the mechanisms of urban resilience. The sixth and seventh paragraph is a discussion of the literature and the starting point of this paper.
Q8: The domains "social elasticity, economic elasticity, infrastructure elasticity and ecological elasticity", mainly considered from section 3, are never formally defined. Authors should correct this.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We have added extensive text in part (1) of 4.1.1 and draw on the authoritative literature to give formal definitions of the domains of “social resilience, economic resilience, infrastructure resilience and ecological resilience”. Based on this, the reasons for choosing these 16 indicators in this paper are further explained.
Q9: Subsection 3.1 makes the same mistakes of the previous section 2. There are large blocks of texts with low connection and shallow discussions. The text is superficial and it seems to be created by LLM-based tools like chat GPT.
- The conclusion of section 3.1 is weak. The claim that "In general, smart city pilot policies promote the overall resilience" is not supported by the performed discussions.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. In subsection 3.1 we introduce the policy implementation theory as the theoretical basis of this section by reading the related literature. And in subsection 3.1 we analyze the process of the impact of smart city pilot policies on each dimension of urban resilience. We start the analysis according to the perspective of the impact of each dimension. It is not generated by chat gpt. For this purpose, we cite the relevant literature that we read. This can support the theoretical analysis of each part.
Q10: - The hypothesis H1, H2 and H3 should be better explained. A better idea to improve clearness is to introduce them on the beginning of section 3 (consider an itemize constructor)
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We present the relationship of these hypotheses by adding text at the beginning of Section 3. And we answer why we propose hypotheses H1, H2 and H3.
Q11: - Actually, the paper starts to make sense only after section 4, which is a strong indication that the article has to be rewritten for improvement. After that section, the narrative and discussions improve significantly.
- Section 6 should discuss the results (and recommendations) in light with the three previously defined hypotheses.
- The article needs a Conclusion section
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We are very happy to be recognized by you. In fact, Part VI of this article answers that question. The results and recommendations are discussed based on the three assumptions defined earlier. We have changed the title of Part VI to present the results more clearly. In addition, we have added recommendations from both governmental and non-governmental perspectives, and we hope that these recommendations will be helpful.
Q12: Some minor corrections. Avoid using contractions, like "it's" in the abstract. The expression "can be made more adaptable" should be rewritten as "can become more adaptable". Some sentences start with lowercase. Revise.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We have reviewed the full text again. We have refined the parts of the presentation that need to be changed. We have checked for sentence spelling problems. In addition, we have used MDPI's authoring services to make sure that we have no problems with our article.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have conducted a substantial amount of work by evaluating a large number of Chinese cities using panel data, offering a comprehensive view of the macro-level impact of smart city development on the resilience of Chinese cities. This is indeed a meaningful undertaking. However, the complexity of this work also poses challenges in presenting all aspects of the study in such a relatively short paper. I admire the authors’ courage in tackling this topic and hope that they will ultimately succeed in publishing the paper.
The following are some suggestions for revisions:
1. The title of the paper should be clearer, for example: The Impact of Smart City Policies on City Resilience: An Evaluation of 282 Chinese Cities.
2. The abstract is overly complex and lengthy, with certain terms, such as "elasticity," being repeated too frequently. Moreover, have the authors considered standardizing the terminology for city resilience throughout the paper, such as consistently using either "resilience" or "elasticity"?
3. The introduction could be more focused on the core issues. For instance: "Have smart city policies effectively enhanced city resilience? How do mechanisms such as industrial structure upgrades impact resilience levels?" It would also help to succinctly highlight the research gaps and innovations in this paper.
4. The authors selected 16 indicators as Explanatory Variables and also chose Mediating variables and Control variables. However, the rationale for selecting these indicators and how they influence the results has not been clearly explained, which should be addressed.
5. In the Research findings and policy recommendations section, the policy suggestions are too broad and general, lacking concrete implementation pathways. Have the authors considered categorizing or clustering cities to develop more targeted policy recommendations for specific types of cities?
Comments on the Quality of English Language
1. The format of citations should be consistent and correct. Avoid issues such as “Zhu Zhengwei (2024) et al.”, “Li Na (2023) et al.”, and “Zhou Qian et al.”.
2. Before submitting the manuscript, please check for basic spelling errors and avoid issues like “… utilized, the the approach of resilience …”.
Author Response
Response to the comments of Reviewer 2
Thank you for your kind suggestion.
Q1: The title of the paper should be clearer, for example: The Impact of Smart City Policies on City Resilience: An Evaluation of 282 Chinese Cities.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We couldn't agree more with your suggestion. We have changed the title to " The Impact of Smart City Policies on City Resilience: An Evaluation of 282 Chinese Cities".
Q2: The abstract is overly complex and lengthy, with certain terms, such as "elasticity," being repeated too frequently. Moreover, have the authors considered standardizing the terminology for city resilience throughout the paper, such as consistently using either "resilience" or "elasticity"?
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We have abridged the abstract as appropriate. And we have harmonized the expression urban resilience.
Q3: The introduction could be more focused on the core issues. For instance: "Have smart city policies effectively enhanced city resilience? How do mechanisms such as industrial structure upgrades impact resilience levels?" It would also help to succinctly highlight the research gaps and innovations in this paper.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We very much agree with your point of view. But at the same time, considering the reference of reviewer 1, we have added a third paragraph in the introduction. The first paragraph of the introduction emphasizes the context of urban resilience, answering why urban resilience is emphasized and the strategic measures being taken internationally and in China. The second paragraph describes the applications and conceptual differences of urban resilience in emergency management, adaptive smart city systems, sustainable urban development, and equity and urban resilience. Based on this, the research questions of this article are presented. The third paragraph of the introduction indicates the structure of the paper, and the questions to be addressed in each section. In addition, we have added the necessary references for support.
Q4: The authors selected 16 indicators as Explanatory Variables and also chose Mediating variables and Control variables. However, the rationale for selecting these indicators and how they influence the results has not been clearly explained, which should be addressed.
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We very much agree with your point of view. We have added significant text to part (1) of 4.1.1 and drawn on the authoritative literature to provide a formal definition of the domains of 'social resilience, economic resilience, infrastructure resilience and ecological resilience'. On this basis, the paper further explains the reasons for the selection of these 16 indicators. In addition, the paper explains what each of these 16 indicators represents, which is used as support.
Q5: In the Research findings and policy recommendations section, the policy suggestions are too broad and general, lacking concrete implementation pathways. Have the authors considered categorizing or clustering cities to develop more targeted policy recommendations for specific types of cities?
Response: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We very much agree with your point of view. We changed the title to Conclusion and recommendations for accuracy. In the section on recommendations for countermeasures, we took into account the roles of the Government, the market and non-governmental organizations and made relevant recommendations. In addition, we put forward recommendations with different emphases from the government and market perspectives, taking into account the different basic resource endowments of different regions.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article presents an in-depth exploration of how smart city pilot policies, impact urban resilience, with a focus on four key dimensions: social, economic, infrastructural, and ecological resilience. While the paper provides a solid empirical foundation and offers valuable insights, there are some limitations that merit discussion.
The title is clear and direct however it could be slightly more specific by mentioning the context China to give readers a better idea of the focus.
In the introduction section, the research question could be clearly articulated. The paragraph structure could be improved to avoid repeating ideas and making the narrative flow more smoothly.
The literature review section feels somewhat fragmented, with several concepts, introduced but not fully integrated into the paper’s narrative. For example, while disaster risk management is mentioned, its connection to smart cities and resilience is not deeply explored.
The recommendations remain somewhat general without specific actionable steps for policymakers. For instance, while expanding smart cities initiative is suggested, the Authors do not discuss how to overcome the financial technical or governance challenges that might arise in smaller or less developed cities
Even the study includes original heterogeneity analysis (east, eentral and west China), it fails to provide in-depth qualitative insights into why certain regions, particularly the central, and western areas, lag behind in manifesting from smart cities policies. The article would have benefited from exploring regions specific challenges, such as governance issues, infrastructure limitations, or resource constraints, which could explain these disparities more thoroughly.
Case studies, interviews or field observations from specific cities could have added depth and provided a more nuanced understanding of how smart cities policies are implemented on the ground. Similar quantitative insights would offer richer context to explain why some cities may adopt these policies more effectively than other.
Social resilience is mentioned in the context of public services and equity, but the analysis does not delve deeply into how smart city policies might reduce social inequalities or improve community equation. Similarly, the ecological dimension is briefly covered, but the environmental sustainability aspects of smart cities could be further expanded, especially given the growing global emphasis on green cities and climate resilience.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageConcerning the language there is room for improvement in grammatical accuracy, sentence structure, an overall flow. A thorough grammatical stylistic revision, focusing on sentence structure, verb tenses and prepositions would improve the clarity and reliability of the manuscript.
Shifting more sentences to active voice would make the writing more direct and engaging. Using synonyms and avoiding repetitive phrases with would enhance the overall flow of the text. Adding more transitional phrases between sections with improve the logical flow of ideas.
Author Response
Response to the comments of Reviewer 3
Thank you for your kind suggestion.
Q1: The title is clear and direct however it could be slightly more specific by mentioning the context China to give readers a better idea of the focus.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. We couldn't agree more with your suggestion. We have changed the title to " The Impact of Smart City Policies on City Resilience: An Evaluation of 282 Chinese Cities".
Q2: In the introduction section, the research question could be clearly articulated. The paragraph structure could be improved to avoid repeating ideas and making the narrative flow more smoothly.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. We have re-examined the structure of the introductory section. The structure section of the article was added. It is now organized as follows: the first paragraph sets out the context in which urban resilience is being emphasized, answering the question of why urban resilience is being emphasized and the strategic measures being taken in international and Chinese contexts. The second paragraph describes the application and conceptual differences of urban resilience in the context of emergency management, adaptive smart city systems, urban sustainability, and equity and urban resilience. Based on this, the research questions of this paper are presented. The third paragraph describes the structure of the article and the research content of each part.
Q3: The literature review section feels somewhat fragmented, with several concepts, introduced but not fully integrated into the paper’s narrative. For example, while disaster risk management is mentioned, its connection to smart cities and resilience is not deeply explored.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. We refreshed the literature review section. The first paragraph is a definitional study of urban resilience. The second paragraph is the categorization of urban resilience related studies, including the two parts of influencing factors and acting mechanisms. Among them, the influencing factors are further categorized into the single dimension of urban resilience and the system-wide dimension. The third paragraph is a compendium of research results on the single dimension aspect of urban resilience influencing factors. The fourth paragraph summarizes the research results on the system-wide dimension of urban resilience influencing factors. The fifth paragraph is a compendium of research results on the mechanisms of urban resilience. The sixth and seventh paragraph is a discussion of the literature and the starting point of this paper.
Q4: The recommendations remain somewhat general without specific actionable steps for policymakers. For instance, while expanding smart cities initiative is suggested, the Authors do not discuss how to overcome the financial technical or governance challenges that might arise in smaller or less developed cities.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. We very much agree with your point of view. In the section on recommendations for countermeasures, we took into account the roles of the Government, the market and non-governmental organizations and made relevant recommendations. In addition, we put forward recommendations with different emphases from the government and market perspectives, taking into account the different basic resource endowments of different regions.
Q5: Even the study includes original heterogeneity analysis (east, eentral and west China), it fails to provide in-depth qualitative insights into why certain regions, particularly the central, and western areas, lag behind in manifesting from smart cities policies. The article would have benefited from exploring regions specific challenges, such as governance issues, infrastructure limitations, or resource constraints, which could explain these disparities more thoroughly.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. We concur with the points you have raised and have incorporated them into our analysis. In this paper, we provide an in-depth examination of the underlying causes of urban decline in the Midwest. Our analysis encompasses a comprehensive assessment of governance issues, infrastructure challenges, and resource constraints.
Q6: Case studies, interviews or field observations from specific cities could have added depth and provided a more nuanced understanding of how smart cities policies are implemented on the ground. Similar quantitative insights would offer richer context to explain why some cities may adopt these policies more effectively than other.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. In fact, the central government takes into account a city's technological development capacity, government management capacity and local human capital base capacity when determining the list of pilot smart city policies. We have added content to 4.1.2.
Q7: Social resilience is mentioned in the context of public services and equity, but the analysis does not delve deeply into how smart city policies might reduce social inequalities or improve community equation. Similarly, the ecological dimension is briefly covered, but the environmental sustainability aspects of smart cities could be further expanded, especially given the growing global emphasis on green cities and climate resilience.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. Indeed, the recommendations you have proposed are highly constructive. We have previously discussed urban resilience in the context of social equity. We are also considering how smart city pilot policies can be utilized to reduce social inequities. However, it is insufficient to rely solely on the implementation of policies to reduce social inequities. It is imperative that we place greater emphasis on the influence of governmental and non-governmental organizations. This has been incorporated into the recommendations outlined in section VI.
Q8: Concerning the language there is room for improvement in grammatical accuracy, sentence structure, an overall flow. A thorough grammatical stylistic revision, focusing on sentence structure, verb tenses and prepositions would improve the clarity and reliability of the manuscript.
Shifting more sentences to active voice would make the writing more direct and engaging. Using synonyms and avoiding repetitive phrases with would enhance the overall flow of the text. Adding more transitional phrases between sections with improve the logical flow of ideas.
Response: We are very grateful for your careful review. I am most grateful for your thoughtful counsel. The entire text has been subjected to a comprehensive review. Furthermore, we have utilized MDPI's authoring services to guarantee the viability of our reviewed articles.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAuthors significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. However, I would still suggest some basic improvements, since they were not fully addressed by the authors:
1) There are still some very large paragraphs, mainly in sections 1 and 2. A "normal" article has 6 to 7 paragraphs in the Introduction section, but yours only has 3 (just take a look on other Sustainability papers and see that pattern). Each paragraph MUST have a function and this is why it is unreasonable to have only 3 paragraphs in Introduction.
Remember that an Introduction must have at least this structure:
a) General description of the target scenario (smart cities and Chinese reality)
b) Problem scope (what is wrong)
c) Potential solutions and why they are not adequate
d) Proposed approach (your solution)
e) Expected results
f) Structure of the article (what readers should expect)
2) Authors should note that Section 2 has the same problem: very large paragraphs that are very hard to follow.
A suggestion is to divide the narrative, improving readability. And please, insert a comparison table in the Related Works Section (you have to say how the related works relate to each other)
3) English still needs revision and care. For example, in the revised text, there is this: "However, in the promotion process, given the vastness of China, the gaps between the East, middle, and West are large,": middle should be Middle
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageNeed improvement
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe format of citations should be consistent and correct. Avoid issues such as “Zhu Zhengwei (2024) et al.”, “Li Na (2023) et al.”, and “Zhou Qian et al.”. It's not just some Chinese authors who should be listed in full.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe revised version of the article addresses many of the points that I have raised. However, it could still benefit from specific actionable recommendations, deeper qualitative insights into regional challenges, and a more cohesive literature review. Regarding this, the article reviews smart cities, urban resilience, and industrial structure upgrading but does not fully explore connections, especially disaster risk management’s link to resilience, which remains undeveloped. Moreover, while the paper discusses “expanding smart city pilots”, it does not dive into how to implement these policies in under-resourced regions.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageConcerning the language and flow, a comprehensive revision of verb tenses and prepositions is needed to improve clarity.
