County-Level City Shrinkage in China: Representation, Cause, and Response
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article deals with the issue of shrinking cities, which has gained prominence in the last decades in China, through a highly descriptive quantitative approach. It is not clear from the discussion of the problem, analysis and proposal what is the methodological, theoretical and/or practical contribution of the research. It is therefore recommended to specify in the introductory part of the paper the objectives and hypotheses guiding the research.
Furthermore, it is suggested to clarify the following aspects:
· Precise what is meant by “county level city” in China and review the term “generalized cities”. It does not seem appropriate to indicate that the analysis includes the entire territory and population of the county. Moreover, clarify why “generalized cities are suitable as a spatial research scale of shrinkage cities” (L.156).
· How a “reasonable” industrial structure is understood and characterized (L.204)?
· What theoretical and methodological background justifies incorporating short-term population changes in describing the characteristics of shrinking counties?
· What does the classification “economically underdeveloped county level city” (L.253) mean in the provincial context? This characterization is not consistent with the explanation provided.
· Sections 4 and 5 are very descriptive, which makes them difficult to read. It is recommended to include tables containing the data of the five shrinking county-level cities and the province. An improvement in the resolution level of graphic 2 would be appreciated.
· What are the facts that support the proposed policies recommended in section 6? When “government” is mentioned, it is suggested to clarify whether it is the central, provincial or local government. What are the functions, autonomies and budgets of the different levels? How are the proposals operationalised in liability, financially and temporal terms?
· The conclusions summarise the results. What is the contribution of the research? How are the results connected with the literature review?
· Check English grammar in particular L.38 and L198-199.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
An important and interesting topic is presented in the manuscript, because it characterized the shrinkage phenomenon in Changshan of Zhejiang Province using census, nighttime lighting (NTL) and Tencent position big data. The quality of the writing and overall quality of the content are high. The statistical methods are valid and correctly applied. Nevertheless, it can be further improved before publication.
The conclusions should be supplemented in the abstract section.
Compared with the existing literature, the contributions of this paper need to be detailed.
The discussion section is missing. An in-depth comparison of the main results and previous studies should be conducted to elaborate on the most innovative findings and the knowledge gaps.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Referee report on "Country-level city shrinkage in China: Representation, cause and response"
In contrast to many contributions on this subject that deal with economically declining regions, the authors of the paper in front of us study city shrinkage in a relatively economically advanced region in China. The paper is nice and informative and the results are intuitive. It is written in a plain language, which is easy to follow. My comments are relatively minor and mostly editorial.
1. You provide some figures that characterize your region of interest, but please position it better in the general Chinese context.
2. In the literature review (line 66) you mention “a famous paper published by German scholars Häussermann and Siebel in 1988”. Please provide a reference to this piece.
3. Later on in the next paragraph, where you refer to the possible reasons for shrinkage:
a) Line 87: please add “ethno-racial transition” after “declining birth rates”. You could add references to Boustan (2010) and Azarnert (2010) who analyze this issue to your references no. 5 and 36 in the brackets.
b) Line 88: Please add “congestion diseconomies” immediately after “urban decay”. “Congestion diseconomies” is the professional term that is usually used in urban economics to describe all potential ills from overconcentration and inadequate public goods provision, which is the usual problem of the localities subject to urban decay.
You could also add references to Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1992) and Azarnert (2019), where a discussion of congestion diseconomies and further references could be found, to your current references 23, 30, and 37 in the parentheses.
4. Please also add a short paragraph to briefly refer to Chines public policies designed to discourage rural-urban migration and entry of lower skilled individuals into the major most desirable big cities and megacities (hukou system). You show us that population decline in Changshan County begun roughly in 1990. But was there any possible effect of the liberalization of the Hukou laws? Do you have any figures on the out-migration before and after the liberalization?
5. Re-write Conclusion. Make it less general and more focused on the particular contributions of your paper.
6. Double check your reference list. For example, in no. 21 it should be “from 1990 to 2015 (not 015)”. Also provide the number of the volume in no. 51. There are some other points to fix there.
References
Barro, R.J., Sala-i-Martin, X. (1992) Public finance in models of economic growth. Review of Economic Studies 59, 645–661.
Boustan, L.P. (2010) Was postwar suburbanization “white flight”? Evidence from the black migration. Quarterly Journal of Economics 125, 417–443
Azarnert, L.V., (2019) Migration, Congestion and Growth. Macroeconomic Dynamics 23, 3035–3064.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The comments have been incorporated.
