A Study on Transformation of Housing Typology and Its Environmental and Social Effects on the Living Conditions of Residents in Planned Residential Neighborhoods of Kabul City
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Not only the references were upgraded, but the amount of changes and improvements made by the Authors within the body of the text, made it a good article.
The literature Studies shows the good knowledge of the problem and many parts of the text was extensively improved. The subchapter 3.2.2 Social Impacts (lines 469-527) has been improved especially good.
Some parts of the text needs the improvement of English (possibly MDPI English editing would be enough)
Lines 976-978: two references were merged into one- Authors need to correct that.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Some parts of the text needs the improvement of English (possibly MDPI English editing would be enough)
Lines 976-978: two references were merged into one- Authors need to correct that.
Response 1: Dear Regarded Reviewer, we want to thank you for your nice comments that made our paper better. The comments we received last time, were very concrete and comprehensive. Appreciate your kindness.
Actually, there were no lines of 976 and 978. However, we revised all the references. The mistake was in lines 129 and 130 with the same name which was rectified in the new version.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript meets the conditions for publication.
Author Response
Point 1: The manuscript meets the conditions for publication..
Response 1: Dear Regarded Reviewer, We want to thank you for your nice comments that made our paper better. Thanks for your nice comment received this time. We wish you all the best.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The article presents a clear structure of objectives, hypotheses, observation methods and results. Both the topic of analysis and the case study are conveniently presented and an abundant bibliographical state of the art is offered.
The reading raises some minor issues that the authors could implement:
- Much of the qualitative data with which we work comes mainly from direct consultation with residents through questionnaires and surveys. In this way, the results are interesting, but they are basically limited to subjective observations and an exploration on the degree of residential satisfaction in relation to certain topics. It is not a scientific problem for the article, since the results are presented precisely, but it does represent a limitation with respect to the objectives set at the beginning, so it would be convenient to qualify the introduction and clearly expose the limits of the research. In general, no scientific evidence is provided on the impact on health of worsening living conditions. This should be clarified, clearly identifying the limits of the research.
- Another limitation that would be interesting to comment on is the lack of observation of the impact of the change in density of the environments studied. As important as the morphological modifications of the built environment is the alteration in the neighborhood coexistence groups. The densification of the city due to building substitution processes is a phenomenon that affects the social sphere of coexistence, activities, facilities, public services, mobility, etc. It is recommended to observe and incorporate into the bibliography the works of the research team of José Luis Oyón Bañales, Manuel Guàrdia Bassols, Maribel Rosselló i Nicolau and David Hernández Falagán, authors of articles such as "The residential revolution of Barcelona working-class suburbs, 1939- 1980: Nou barris as case study". In their work, they analyze densification processes and the social impact on neighborhoods.
Both questions can be perfectly nuanced in the article proposed, especially in the introduction and conclusions.
Author Response
Dear regarded Reviwers: We want to thank you for your nice comments. We have tried to considers the points hinted one by one. The answers also colured red in the article.
Point 1: Much of the qualitative data with which we work comes mainly from direct consultation with residents through questionnaires and surveys. In this way, the results are interesting, but they are basically limited to subjective observations and an exploration on the degree of residential satisfaction in relation to certain topics. It is not a scientific problem for the article, since the results are presented precisely, but it does represent a limitation with respect to the objectives set at the beginning, so it would be convenient to qualify the introduction and clearly expose the limits of the research. In general, no scientific evidence is provided on the impact on health of worsening living conditions. This should be clarified, clearly identifying the limits of the research.
Response 1: We tried to describe The academic evidence of a relationship between living conditions and health. The proof is given by research conducted in the past and the result confirmed the impacts of living conditions. The explanation is available in the introduction part, page 2, lines 76 to 93.
Point 2: Another limitation that would be interesting to comment on is the lack of observation of the impact of the change in density of the environments studied. As important as the morphological modifications of the built environment is the alteration in the neighborhood coexistence groups. The densification of the city due to building substitution processes is a phenomenon that affects the social sphere of coexistence, activities, facilities, public services, mobility, etc. It is recommended to observe and incorporate into the bibliography the works of the research team of José Luis Oyón Bañales, Manuel Guàrdia Bassols, Maribel Rosselló i Nicolau and David Hernández Falagán, authors of articles such as "The residential revolution of Barcelona working-class suburbs, 1939- 1980: Nou barris as case study". In their work, they analyze densification processes and the social impact on neighborhoods.
Response 2: The densification is described in the paper well. We tried to debate the topic with both developing and developed countries. The referenced paper was in Spanish. Though we tried to cite it and use Google Translate for understanding. The explanation can be found on page 3, lines 113-125.
In addition, we tried to compare the density of the pre-transformation and post-transformation periods. This is shown on page 10, lines 340-347
In Conclusion, both topics are described and highlighted. Page 22, lines 720-732, and 734-735
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper titled "Transformation of Detached Houses into Apartment Buildings and Its Environmental & Social Effects on Living Conditions of Residents in Planned Residential Neighborhoods" is a very interesting manuscript.
It focuses on important cultural challenges for the future of contemporary cities, including the problem generated by urbanization processes that violate rules and regulations.
The authors provide a pertinent and complete literature review and analyze the results of the main studies conducted in this field. This awareness allows authors to develop a precise research methodology.
However, I would like to suggest that in section 1 (Introduction), the research topic could be framed within the broader disciplinary debate concerning the importance of favoring the compact city model to reduce land consumption. This approach has often led to the proposal of policies and projects aimed at increasing urban density. More precisely, I believe that the authors can explain that the present study aims to assess the environmental and social impacts generated by the urban densification process, even if the selected case study can be identified as an unplanned urban densification process.
This is a non-binding suggestion. However, if the authors decide to frame their study within the disciplinary debate concerning the paradigms of the sustainable city, including that of the compact city, they should integrate the references.
In light of these considerations, possible future improvements and advancements of the present research may concern the assessment of the environmental and social effects generated by an urban development model that requires greater land consumption, and compare these impacts with those generated by the transformation of detached houses into apartment buildings. This comparison could prove useful in assessing the degree of sustainability of the different urban development models.
Finally, authors should check the section numbers because the paragraph titled "Recommendations and Suggestions" does not have a number.
Reviewer 2 Report
Prior to writing an article the authors should recognize the better the state of art. The references are very poor. Not only many other Studies were conducted on the situation, which are not listed in the references (eg. lines 78-79) of housing in Kabul, but also the issues of densification of housing architecture in other cities and countries ( even in post-Soviet world) has been widely published. The problems of overdensification of Housing neighbourhoods (including historic city zones) were largely discussed over last few decades. It is recommended to use references from such a magazines: Sustainability, Land, Urban Studies (mdpi), Cities (Elsevier), Technical Transactions (Sciendo), Housing Environment or Wiadomosci Konserwatorskie- Journal of Hertitage Conservation. The numerous books on the typologies of Housing (also in central Asia) has been published as well. Authors seems not to know anything of tchem. The authors should clearly emphasize which is the „Research gap” they are filling in. In the present form, the article is not suitable for publication in any research magazine.
Reviewer 3 Report
The study takes into consideration an extremely current and interesting topic concerning the typological transformation of residential buildings in the formal neighborhood of Kabul city and how the different housing typologies have influenced the health and quality of life of residents.
Residential environments, in fact, can have influences on a variety of health outcomes and the scientific literature of the sector has shown that the living environment has a great impact on people's physical and mental health. To date, housing is one of the most important social determinants of health.
The study is clearly organized, contains all the components of a scientific article (introduction, Materials and methods, results, discussions, and conclusions); needs to be integrated and revised in some points (listed below), in particular in the section relating to the introduction and in the section relating to the method.
The starting scenario of the study is clear, outlined quite clearly thanks to the punctual bibliographic references (especially about precise searches that refer to studies on similar areas or with similar characteristics). The objective of the study is clearly expressed and well framed with respect to previous research.
The method, in my opinion, is the weakest part of the article. The method used needs a clearer and more complete description. The results part is described in detail and is interesting, but it should be revised (for example it contains method parts) as specified below. The section relating to "Discussions" seems to me to be well articulated; some of the information contained in this paragraph should also be, perhaps, revised and moved to another section of the paper. This part should refer more importantly to the health of the residents.
Reading the document was, in my opinion, formative and stimulating, and can interest readers from different areas because the topic lends itself to being studied transversally, involving different disciplines.
The topic is topical and may be suitable for publication after major reviews.
In particular
- Introduction
The introduction is interesting but lacks in-depth analysis of the impacts on health due to changes over the years in relation to building types. In my opinion it is necessary to add further information and bibliographical references that deepen the relationship between the building typology and the impacts on health, on how environmental and social effects relating to living conditions can develop.
Pay attention to line 76 Previous Studies is paragraph 1.1.
- Materials and method
In my opinion, this section needs several additions. In this section, in my opinion, the method by which the study was conducted should be described. And therefore how and why the selection of the study areas was carried out, how the survey was carried out, what type of questionnaire was developed and submitted to the population, what the questionnaire questions were about, what the survey conducted consisted of at the municipality of Kabul.
This particular section must be developed systematically and should be scientifically valid and repeatable.
With this in mind, the section should be revised, integrated and modified.
From lines 109 to 116: this part describing the selected study area should be moved to the results.
Line 131: Is it possible to include more information on the questionnaire in the method? how the questionnaire was constructed, how many sections it is composed of, how it was administered, how the responses were analyzed.
In general, all the criteria and evaluation methods used in this specific research should be described in this section (part of this information has been included in section “4. Analysis and discussions”).
- Results
Lines 144 to 150: in my opinion this description is part of the previous section (Materials and Method) and not of the results.
Section 3.2. "Impacts of Housing Transformation on Living Condition of Residents"
Even if the number of interviewees is not entirely sufficient to effectively describe the relationship between building changes and living conditions, it would still be very useful for the study to report the analysis of the questionnaire results in tables. It would be very interesting to statistically analyze the residents' responses.
It is important to give due weight to each section of the study and not to briefly describe different parts. The study presented by the authors is very interesting, but it is necessary to integrate some parts.
Section 3.2.1. Environmental Impacts
In my opinion, it is necessary to describe the different environmental impacts and, consequently, the effects on health also, and above all, in the introduction (with related bibliographical references).
For the rest of this section the results described are interesting.
Unfortunately, the sample described is made up of a relatively low number of people; this implies that the results of the questionnaire describe the trend but then do not give actual substance to the result obtained.
Section 3.2.2. Social Impacts
First, I would move the parts relating to noise pollution and natural light to the previous section "3.2.1. Environmental Impacts ".
Furthermore, I would deepen and integrate a little the part relating to social impacts. The description of the lack of privacy is very good. Then? Perhaps some cross-analysis of the questionnaire could say something more.
And the use of outdoor spaces?
Is there a lack of privacy even inside homes? Are there any overcrowded situations? What has all this meant for residents with regards to health impacts? The children?
- Analysis and Discussions
293 to 337: Much of what is described in these lines could be moved into the method. The evaluation criteria and the measurement method should be described in the method.
Attention to table 9, there are overlapping writings.
I find the rest of the section analyzed correctly and the content very interesting.
Attention to table 13, there are overlapping writings.
Recommendations and tips section
Interesting reflections and suggestions.
I would highlight more reflections and suggestions regarding the health of residents. Also in this case I recommend supplementing this part with further studies and appropriate bibliographical references.
Reviewer 4 Report
This is a very meaningful study with certain innovations. However, the following aspects still need to be improved:
1. The encoding of "2.1. Previous Studies" should be problematic and needs to be corrected.
2.The literature research in the "Previous Studies" section is too weak, a more systematic literature review is needed and the theories adopted in the study are introduced.
3.In the "Analysis and Discussions" section, it is necessary to discuss with the literature, explain the innovation of the research and the theoretical contribution and practical significance, and also explain the limitations of the research and the direction of future research.
