Coordinated Development of Urban Agglomeration in Central Shanxi
Marco Bontje
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Your research topic is potentially interesting and your article may become a relevant contribution to debates about how urban agglomerations can become more coherent wholes and how they can become more competitive, in line with the recent policy intentions for these areas in China. With your rich data set you may indeed be able to assess this. However, to get closer to publishable quality in an international peer-reviewed journal like Sustainability, your manuscript would still have to be improved substantially.
Most importantly: I miss you research question (or questions)! Maybe it is already there implicitly, but it should be made more explicit. Without a clear research question, it is not clear to your readers why you chose the data and indicators that you have analysed (why and how they are relevant for your research question), and it will also be difficult to draw clear conclusions without a research question.
I also miss a theoretical framework / literature review about the concept of urban agglomerations, and its broader theoretical context: the debate about urban and city-regional spatial forms and functional relationships within and between cities and city-regions. In your introduction, you claim that urban agglomeration is a new urban-regional development model. But how new is it really? Is it new in China only, or also internationally? The concept urban agglomeration is definitely not new! What may be new though is the scale level it is applied on in China? (a much higher scale level than in most other countries?) So you should try to connect your analysis of a Chinese case (the central Shanxi agglomeration) not only with on-going debates and results of earlier research in China, but also with relevant international debates and research results.
This brings me to my third recommendation: keep in mind that you are writing for an international audience that may not be familiar yet with the recent debate about urban agglomerations in China, and also may not be famaliar yet with the location and context of your case study region. For Chinese researchers and policy advisors about urban agglomerations, the rationale and relevance of your research may immediately be clear; but international readers (like me) may wonder: why this research? There seems to be a clear political and societal relevance, but what about the academic relevance?
Your academic English could also be improved. Quite frequently there are very long, and sometimes incoherent, sentences with many commas. It would be better to break them up in two or more sentences. Some sentences and expressions are hard to understand. A native speaker language check is recommended.
Added to these major issues, some more detailed questions and comments:
* The title may be 'to the point', but is not very exciting (it does not convince readers that they should read your article)
* Abstract: rewrite as one text instead of 4 'bullet point' parts.
* "(...) a major opportunity for Shanxi to rise in the central region (...)" (both in the abstract and also later in the article). What does this mean? This is one of those issues that may be clear to Chinese readers, but not to non-Chinese readers. Clarify in your article, for example with a map showing what the central region is and where Shanxi is situated in that region.
* Introduction, p. 1 line 28: what is a 'spatial combination model'?
* Research method, p. 3, lines 112-113: you measure the 'quality of city' with the indicators population size and GDP. How are they related to 'quality'? How do you define 'quality'? I would rather expect, for example, 'quality of life' indicators here; not indicators that only express how many people live in a city and how high or low its GDP is, and/or how those two indicators are growing or declining?
* Research method, p. 3, lines 116-117: what do you mean with "(...) on both sides of the second ladder (...)"?
* 'External analysis': I understand why you want to compare your case study region with other regions. But why compare with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei aglgomeration? Is this a fair and/or realistic comparison? It is one of the largest and most important regions of China! Is it a relevant comparison for the central Shanxi agglomeration?
* Discussion: normally in a discussion, not only the results of the analysis are reflected on, but it should also be related to relevant literature (are your results in line with that literature or not, how could you explain possible differences between your results and earlier results and/or what would be expected based on that literature?). However, as said above, a theoretical framework is still missing in your manuscript. So when you add a theoretical framework to your article, you could also refer back to what you discussed there in your discussion section. Also, check to what extent your policy recommendations follow logically from your analysis results, they partly seem to be unconnected to it?
Author Response
Please refer to the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper proposes a study on coordination and cooperation mechanism of urban agglomeration in central Shanxi.
However, revision is needed. Suggestions for authors are provided as follows.
An additional paragraph on the rationale and contents of each section at the of the introduction would better guide the reader through the materials of the essay.
The discussion section should follow the results (to explain and interpretate them) and precede the conclusion.
The conclusion should summarize the main points given in the manuscript by drawing together the ideas to explain how they connect and relate. It would also be appreciable to include suggestions for further research.
Line 172: it is not clear to me how urban quality is defined. Which variables define urban quality? How are data drawn?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Abstract
1.1. The authors need to present the objective of the work.
2. Introduction
2.1. The authors need to present the objective of the work.
2.2. The relevance/contribution of the work needs to be better presented.
2.3. Please, add information about the paper structure and a short description of its sections at the end of the Introduction.
3. Body part of the paper
3.1. The authors state: in line 11 - "This paper reports a novel method," and in lines 367 to 369 - "Through the above research, this paper basically solved the defect detection and pixel quantification problems of multi-class and multi-object pavement under complex backgrounds." These statements need to be better presented/explained. A synthesis of the proposed new method would help the reader better understand the work's objective and contribution.
3.2. The authors should better highlight the innovation and relevance of their research.
3.3. Line 93, "industrial structure similarity coefficient," and line 96, "industrial isomorphism coefficient." Terms need to be matched.
3.4. In the discussion section, the authors should better highlight the relevance of the results, recommendations for future works, and research limitations.
3.5. Can the main findings be extrapolated to other regions? Under what assumptions and conditions?
Author Response
Please refer to the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper attempts to investigate the coordination mechanism of urban agglomeration in central Shanxi by using quantitative methods such as gravity model, industrial structure similarity coefficient and population-economic growth elasticity. Although an interesting topic that it presents, the paper needs some major revisions in many aspects.
1. The research objective is unclear in its present version. The title mentions that they attempt to look at the coordination and cooperation mechanism of urban agglomeration, but the content actually tries to measure the development level rather than the mechanism of urban agglomeration. Mechanism is totally a different area that may focus on the interactions between different cities, and models of cooperation. My suggestion is that the authors may modify the title.
2. The authors declaimed that they used the modified gravity model, but how they modify it and what differences that it may appear to be comparing with the former version are not clarified in the section 3.1.
3. In section 4.1.1, the urban quality was analyzed, but it didn’t mention that which variables were used to measure that. And it should be better to show the comparison of different urban agglomerations to use tables rather than maps.
4. Some words and terms are too Chinese oriented, like Five-Year Plan, high quality development, which need more explanations for international readers.
5. The references are mostly based on Chinese journals but not labeled with (in Chinese), which will cause confusions, and are beyond the understanding of international readers. To make it more readable for international readers, my suggestion is to replace most of the Chinese references with English ones.
Author Response
Please refer to the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors
All mentioned issues have been addressed. My decision is: Aproved
Author Response
非常感谢您的评论，祝您一切顺利。
Reviewer 4 Report
Although the paper was greatly improved, there are some points that may need further revision. First, the question regarding the measure of urban quality mentioned by more than one reviewers has not been clearly addressed in the revised version. It is too superficial to take the average value of population and GDP as the indication for urban economic quality. A better indictor should be designed for this measurement. Second, some references are in Chinese but the note of “In Chinese” is still missing. Lastly, it is not necessary to have the term “Study on” in the title.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your review. Please see the attachment and wish you all success.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 4 Report
Accept in present form
