Assessment of Urban Sustainability and Coupling Coordinated Development: An Empirical Study in Anhui Province, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic of the manuscript is relevant, and its content may be of interest to potential readers. However, there are some of gaps and shortcomings that authors need to remove:

1. The sentence contained in lines 44-47 should be slightly reformulated and moved to the third paragraph of the Introduction, since this sentence does not correspond very well with the material of the first two paragraphs of this section.

2. The purpose and tasks of the research should be more clearly formulated in the Introduction.

3. It is advisable to explain in more detail the features inherent in China's policy for potential readers of this article from other countries. For example, what does the status “national new urbanization pilot province” mean (line 45)? What is supported by China's government in line 66? Also, the authors sometimes use the term "China's Five-Year Plan", in particular in line 428, but do not specify the time period.

4. When reviewing the literature, you should not refer to several sources at once (first of all, this applies to the reference in line 77). It is better to analyze each source separately.

5. The system of indicators proposed by the authors in Table 1 is undoubtedly interesting. However, the methodology for calculating some of these indicators (in particular, indicators of the urbanization rate, per capita urban low-security fund, etc.) should be described in more detail. It also seems to me that the indicators proposed by the authors do not take into account a number of components of the urban sustainability. In particular, the level of providing the population with housing, public transport, cultural and sports institutions, etc. is not fully taken into account.

6. In subsection 3.3.1, the authors propose the index reflecting the urbanization quality, using indicators for urban sustainability. According to the authors, how are the urban sustainability and the urbanization quality related?

7. In my opinion, the method of determining indicator weights (subsection 3.3.3) and the coupling coordination degree model (subsection 3.3.4) proposed by the authors require a more detailed justification.

8. Based on the division of the urbanization quality level into five types proposed in lines 274-275, the authors assume the possibility that this level can be as high as desired. Isn't there an upper limit to this level?

9. In subsection 4.2, the authors consider relationships between urbanization quality and economic development. Wouldn't it be better for this purpose to determine the share of EDi in the value of the UQi indicator?

10. At the end of Section 5, it is advisable to more clearly and fully describe the existing limitations of this study and directions for further research.

​I think it is appropriate to acquaint the authors with these comments, suggestions and questions. I hope that such an acquaintance helps to improve the quality of the manuscript, which is expected to be published in such a high-ranking journal as "Sustainability".

Grammar needs improvement. Some sentences could be worded better.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

This study evaluated the quality of urbanization and the level of coordination in 16 cities in a Chinese province, using 32 indicators. Some aspects need checking:
1. The expression of some sentences indicates gaps in English expression. E.g: Line 37. For example, ; Line 61: Hence, ; Line 96: Generally speaking, ; Line 226: That is, … and others.
2. It has been observed that errors related to time positioning are identified when expressed in English. E.g: Line 16 … which considering the interactive … or Line 33 - …urban population is 32.9% in 1990…
3. The indicators coded and used in section 3 (UQ ; CC) are not found in the following tables.
4. I recommend placing the tables and figures near their reference in the text. Tables 3, 4, and 5 can be separated with corresponding explanations.
5. The source of the figures or how they were made is not mentioned.
The paper has an acceptable structure and respects the rules of the journal.

The linguistic revision of the entire manuscript is necessary.

1. The expression of some sentences indicates gaps in English expression. E.g: Line 37. For example, ; Line 61: Hence, ; Line 96: Generally speaking, ; Line 226: That is, … and others.
2. It has been observed that errors related to time positioning are identified when expressed in English. E.g: Line 16 … which considering the interactive … or Line 33 - …urban population is 32.9% in 1990…

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The design of this study is commendable, data organization and analysis are well done, but the discussion section needs to be improved and mined deeply. Some questions are as below.

1.       The authors should better clarify the research design, originality, theoretical and managerial implications in the abstract.

2.       It is not clear to explain the contribution of this paper. In other word, it is by no means clear why this is an interesting areas of study and the paper really needs a much stronger motivation.

3.       The literature review and the method should be improved and needs to add more the differences. The authors should add more recently published related papers about environmental pollution, carbon emissions and health issues as complementary references, such as:

                      i.             https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2023.106791

                    ii.             https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.104579

4.       The authors do not have a clear conceptual framework.

5.       The authors fail to provide economic explanations or reasons for their empirical results, and the interpretation of the heterogeneity analysis results lacks theoretical support.

6.       It will be better if authors discuss the limitations and direction for future studies.

Language used across the manuscript needs a full and comprehensive checking, and to make sure academic language is used throughout the manuscript.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Overall, the paper is correctly structured into sections. The literature is appropriately selected and properly referenced (with the exception of line 456, where naming of "some scholars" would have been welcome).

The choice of the Chinese province as an appropriate and illustrative case study has been convincingly argued. However, insufficient information has been provided on the 16 cities and their specificities (e.g. in terms of particular cultural offerings, heritage features or other soft factors that may attract residents and promote urbanisation).

The section dedicated to the determination of indicator weights is not entirely clear on how the respective scores were weighted for each of the cities studied. For example, it is not fully clear from the paper whether environmental protection was a stronger value in the urbanisation process than social or demographic development. As a result, the assessment of urbanisation quality has rather limited explanatory power.

In the light of the above, I have no choice but to recommend a major revision of the paper.

Unfortunately, the quality of the paper is greatly reduced by the number of linguistic errors (grammatical, stylistic or even typographical). These errors make the paper difficult to follow at many points. 

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In my opinion, the text of the manuscript has improved. The authors took into account most of my comments. At the same time, the text of the manuscript still has certain shortcomings (mostly of a technical nature) and some debatable points, namely:

1. The authors should more fully consider the seventh remark from my previous review. In particular, it is advisable to explain how the transition from the results of Step 1 and Step 2 to equation (8) occurs. Why is there an exponentiation in this equation? I also recommend to reveal in more detail the meaning of the concept of coupling coordination degree and to explain why exactly such methods of averaging the values of indicators were chosen when constructing equations (9)-(11). Potential readers of this article should fully understand the research methodology used.

2. Please check that all borrowed statements and results are referenced. In particular, this applies to the sentence in lines 56-57.

4. Lines 578-585 describe the prospects for further research. I recommend giving this description as a reference for readers. Perhaps not only the authors, but also some of the readers will have a desire to continue this research. In particular, it is better to use phrases like "should be collected" (line 582) and "should be expanded" (line 583).

In my opinion, there is still room for some improvement in grammar. Some sentences could be worded better to be fully understood by the readers. In particular, this applies to sentences in lines 22-24, 73-75, etc. So, I recommend that authors do a final grammar check.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

 The authors have made substantial revisions. The paper can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Thank you for your hard work and recognition.