Liberalization, Trans-European Corridors and EU Funds: A New Scenario in the Relationship between Rail Networks and Mediterranean Cities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The title is too long, it is actually three parts when perhaps it should be only two. It should be focused on the main theme and omit secondary themes in the title.
Regarding the summary, it is too general to talk about Spain and the rest of Europe and to make such an ambiguous statement at the beginning of the summary. If the case to be analyzed is Spain or specific Spanish cases, omit references to the rest of Europe in such an open-ended way and focus the statements on the corroborated case studies.
The abstract should also briefly present the methodology used and a preview of the conclusions drawn from the research.
It is hard to understand that the article starts from the analysis of three circumstances: LIBERALIZATION, EUROPEAN CORRIDORS AND NEXT GENERATION FUNDS. Why these three aspects? How does it conclude that these three aspects are the fundamental ones in the changes in the relationship between the integration of high-speed rail in cities and their urban morphology? Minimal justification for this is lacking in the summary itself.
The Introduction section does not resolve doubts regarding the focus of the article. This section lacks sufficient justification of the focus of the article. In the introduction, no reference is made to previous studies specifically dedicated to this change of scenario or paradigm. Many urban dynamics are mixed with the development of high-speed rail, overall when it is a fact that the vertiginous growth in land and housing in many Spanish cities has occurred independently of the high speed rail network, which has reached the different Spanish cities in a very unequal manner.
In my opinion, the research should be better limited to the Spanish Levant, to the case studies observed, and not to make such categorical and general statements. Mainly if statements are said without enough link to the literature on the subject, which are extended the ideas to the whole country. The introduction should explain the parts and structure of the article and support with references to the related bibliography the motivations of the hypothesis.
Section 1 again carries out two parallel lines of description that neither mix nor justify each other. It seems to respond to a type of history of events rather than to the search for variables or dimensions of analysis to understand the affections between urban form and renovation/investment in the high-speed rail network.
The description of the implementation of high speed rail in Spain is insufficient in the context formulated by the article. It does not relate in a developed and concrete way what happened in the cities, with their differences and nuances. We are talking about a specific urban scale and areas of these cities affected in any case by the appearance or not of the high-speed train, which would require the involvement of many other possible factors of analysis. What is written is, monographically, a comparative mode with respect to other countries and contexts and based on large figures. The description of urban growth in Spain is once again too quantitative and far removed from the case studies. The link between urban growth, population growth and the implementation of a certain high-speed network is considered axiomatic. This statement, which is the basis of the article, is little justified and is used more as an unquestionable starting point. At the same time, conclusions are not the result of the analysis, which is missing, from my point of view, beyond an account of certain urban renewal operations (not changes in urban form).
The research is, in this sense, structurally very weak, although the three phenomena presented (liberalization, European network and Next Generation European funds) are partially described correctly. This is because the further development of the article is not closely related to the three justifications, nor is its demonstration specifically pursued. The description of urban and population growth is on a general or national scale and does not relate to the appearance or not of high-speed rail or the timing of its implementation. This is done neither expressly nor through any cartographic research, analytical of the urban and its transformations. The step would be obligatory in a working hypothesis of this nature.
Section 3 is a very complete but unnecessarily general and broad review of the subject matter. It again departs from the study of the hypothesis: a sort of review of everything written in relation to the general topic of the article. Instead, the text should focus on the specific issue to be addressed. The article should not be a compilation of studies and a general literature review, but an in-depth study of a specific and limited topic to demonstrate an advance or a finding in the study of the phenomenon in the case studies and on the topic analyzed. The connection between the research methodology and the literature on the topic is poorly developed, limited to a mainly Spanish bibliography. This does not seem very effective or logical since the international bibliography on the impact of railroads on cities is as or more valuable for selecting an analysis methodology.
The case studies are too numerous, with known explanations of the most central urban projects on the train in these cities. The article is, from this reviewer's point of view, too long, more than 15000 words and 40 pages. This seems to be due to this way of proceeding by adding elements to the text that have a juxtaposition relationship, but the relationships are not sufficiently worked with a more solid research structure.
Thus, the section dedicated to the description of the case studies is added too late in the development of the complete article, after the European and national reviews of the theoretical issues.
The article thus shown is a sum of stories, for this reviewer, too little interwoven. This is especially noticeable in the independent description and without common methodology of analysis of the cities described. These projects have a very unequal relationship with the three lines of argument of the article: liberalization, European network and post-pandemic European funds. This relationship is not specifically worked out.
In my opinion, it would be necessary to select a smaller number of case studies, or perhaps only one or two at most; so as not to get lost in stories already known by the specific bibliography that extensively develops themes that accompany but are not really central. The city, its morphology, the station areas and the new high-speed rail network routes in the urban fabric, urban weights, etc., are little analyzed and worked on, having little space and weight in the article. This is shown in poorly developed tables 6 and 7 that could well be part of the text and that do not take advantage of the table methodology.
It would be necessary to correct this imbalance and decide whether a theoretical or theoretical-practical article is desired. The first option would require a review of the literature on conceptual aspects of the implementation of high speed or other types of railroads and defines its object of study more in the thematic than in the practical cases. In the second option, as seems to be deduced from part of the title of the article, it would be necessary to opt for specific research on how this implementation affects the growth or urban forms of the city/s in question, with a detailed analysis of the effect of the factors of the hypothesis on the urban form of the city, not on the appearance of specific infrastructural projects that have been planned or developed previously.
Finally, the article is presented as an effort to prove the initial hypothesis. In my opinion, the wording does not specifically demonstrate this, even if a general relationship between the issues discussed and urban projects in cities is observed. The case studies are presented according to general descriptions of central operations of new lines and stations in city centers. Such urban renewal projects involve, in most cases, speculative urban movements, in no way related to population growth. Neither is the city analyzed in terms of centrality (an axis actually absents in the article), nor through the interrelation with other urban dynamics of these cities, which are also not studied.
A good part of the central urban rail projects described are linked to operations of reformulation of the railway problem on a local scale, neither justified nor analyzed. They occur in relation to the usual conflicts of public space and the barrier effect of the railroad as it passes through the cities.
The projects are, on the other hand, effectively financed on a multilevel and largely by European funds, but they are aspirations and lines of work of urban planning prior to the pandemic, to liberalization, even to the formation of the European network and the Next Generation funds. The impulse of cities in terms of sustainability, intermodality and urban integration does not come from the considerations brought by the pandemic. The necessary multimodality was already being worked on before and has been promoted in a generalized way for cities since the Sustainable Economy Law of 2009.
I have no comments in this regard.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Please find attached our comments to your review. Thank you very much for your insightful comments and constructive observations. We think we have improved structure, the coherence and the overall quality of the manuscript to be published in Land Special Issue on Urban Morphology,
We look forward to receiving your feedback on our revision.
Best regards
Josep Vicent Boira & Matteo Berzi
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This piece presents an interesting monography about some rail interventions and their relations with the urban morphology in four cities in Spain. This is an important subject to understand the impact of this type of intervention on the urban form and dynamics at local, city and regional levels.
Regretfully, the manuscript is not well-written and is hard to understand at different points. Overall, I don't see this piece as a research article but more than a well-presented literature review. In my view, the hypothesis is far from clear. Is it the integration of the city with the rail station? At some point, it is mentioned that "The aim of this article is to show how new processes of rail integration are taking place" So basically, the authors are listing the observed changes around these new developments. I am sorry, but this is not a contribution but a descriptive exercise.
The authors reviewed what happened in Barcelona, Valencia, Murcio and Lorca, showing different data from different sources but never giving an original insight. The materials and methods section isn't such. It is a literature review. The description of each city is interesting and provides lots of facts, but, again, there is nothing that someone cannot review in the references.
In contrast, the conclusions are quite good, but I failed to see how the previous sections support this final discourse.
I recommend first, getting some help with written English to avoid any misconceptions due to the language and, second, if the authors decide to keep the same format, add more cities from the Mediterranean corridor, ideally, not only from Spain.
Already made comments about this in my review.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Please find attached our comments to your review. Thank you very much for your insightful comments and constructive observations. We think we have improved structure, the coherence, the overall quality of the manuscript and of the Figures to be published in Land Special Issue on Urban Morphology,
We look forward to receiving your feedback on our revision.
Best regards
Josep Vicent Boira & Matteo Berzi
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a correct article, which provides new information on the subject and analyzes it in detail. The work is well defined and well structured and the objective is clear, as in New contributions (section 4). However, there are some aspects that should be improved or adjusted.
1. Comments on structure and content
a. Section 2: "Materials and methods". The methods are not there and are not referenced. It is a descriptive work that uses, among other things, information from public sources to carry out an analysis of new urban areas transformed by the railway. This "method", for example, is not cited and neither is the other one: analysis of European funds by the broker, etc...
b. Section 5. Case study...... are actually the results. The section could be redefined like: Results……
c. The discussion should be section 6 and is misnumbered as 4. It only has two pages of text. It should be more developed. For example, you can repeat a statement on page 8: the particularity of the case of Spain as Bellet and Alonso wrote : "the European country where the legacy of the TAV has gone associated with changes more intense in the form and physical structure of the cities ” [ the European country where the arrival of high-speed trains have been associated with the most intense changes in the shape and physical structure of cities ] [54]. Can a comparison be made with other European cities, even if it is only a brief reference????
d. Section 5. Conclusions should be 7. It is a summary of what has been worked on, it is too short, only one and a half pages and there are no new ways, new lines of work. What can the runner represent, once completed.......
2. Formal comments. I refer to the figures, a prominent topic for the publication, which in general have fundamental shortcomings.
a. Fig.1. Map with continuous and discontinuous lines .
i. Legend is missing (railway in operation, under construction or planned???? Don't know)
ii. North and scale are missing
b. Fig 3.
i. North and scale are missing
c. Fig. 5. Poor quality
i. The names of the cities are not read
ii. The names of the runners are not read
d. Fig. 6
i. North and scale are missing
ii. Legend: railway?, areas: NUTS ?
e. Fig 7
i. North and scale are missing
f. Fig. 8
i. North and scale are missing
g. Fig. 10
i. It is not translated
h. Fig. 11
i. North and scale are missing
i. Fig. 12
i. translate
ii. Unify toponym Valencia
iii. North and scale are missing
j. Fig. 13
i. North and scale are missing
ii. translate
iii. Unify " estación Universitats", " actual red ferroviària de València”
catalan-spanish
k. Figures 15 and 17
i. North and scale are missing
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Please find attached our comments to your review. Thank you very much for your insightful comments and constructive observations. We think we have improved structure, the coherence, the overall quality of the manuscript and of the Figures to be published in Land Special Issue on Urban Morphology,
We look forward to receiving your feedback on our revision.
Best regards
Josep Vicent Boira & Matteo Berzi
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
First of all, I would like to acknowledge the authors' efforts to improve their text. Certain decisions made in this second installment certainly improve the conception and structure of the article. However, I would continue to recommend the following guidelines:
- Case studies in research are fundamental. If they exist, they must be analyzed based on a series of variables or issues that must be justified, codified and applied. In my view, the article suffers from a lack of analysis of the urban fabric of the stations, and other socioeconomic and urban aspects of the context of these nodes.
- The theoretical framework of a research cannot all be placed behind Materials and Methods, but should be differentiated between Theoretical Framework and Theoretical Research, the former precedes the methodological proposal and the latter can be considered as a result and should help to produce the variables of analysis in the case studies.
- The article continues to be too descriptive, sometimes of situations that are too general or out of context, concluding with well-known statements that are far removed from the case studies addressed. The data provided should be relevant to the research, limited to them, and avoid the proliferation of descriptions that would lead us to a "general account of the railroad issue" without a temporal or spatial framework. Everything that is close to the temporal and spatial framework of the case study (the eastern cities of the Mediterranean arc) will be positive for the research.
I would recommend following these instructions upon potential acceptance of the manuscript.
None
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We appreciate your comments, and we are pleased that you note the improvements we have made to the manuscript to be published in Land Special Issue on Urban Morphology.
Please find attached our comments to your second review. We thank you again for your insightful comments and constructive observations. We had the opportunity to improve the quality of the structure and to provide more socioeconomic data on the case study.
We look forward to receiving your feedback on our revision.
Best regards
Josep Vicent Boira & Matteo Berzi
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Although this revised version still presents some of the original issues (in some parts, it's too much of a literature review), authors include/change/reword many sections, and the manuscript has been substantially improved. The authors took into consideration my previous concerns and addressed them accordingly.
I have no further comments, so I recommend this piece for publication in Land.
There are still some odd phrases, but the quality has improved greatly from the last version.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We appreciate your comments, and we are pleased that you note the improvements we have made to the manuscript to be published in the Land Special Issue on Urban Morphology.
Kind regards
Josep Vicent Boira & Matteo Berzi
