How Do the New Residential Areas in Bucharest Satisfy Population Demands, and Where Do They Fall Short?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article assesses the expectations of dwellers of the new residential developments in Bucharest regarding their new homes. An impressive amount of effort has been made to carry out the analysis and prepare the article. However, there are some less successful parts, which require improvements. First of all, the literature review should be improved. The review made in the article misses some important sources on urbanization and planning in Romania and, especially, Bucharest, which, in several cases, provide a more detailed explanation of the general ideas mentioned in the text, while, in other cases, they supply additional information, important for the description and interpretation of the findings. I made some suggestions regarding missing sources; you can find them in my comments below:

Lines 134-135: The expansion of Bucharest since 1990 has been realized in a much more complex way than you describe here (radially). You can find more details in one of the articles you cited [43] and here https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098015608568

Lines 145-146 and 162: Bucharest has not followed a typical suburbanization path. In addition, it is not clear what you mean by “inner city”. You should be more specific in defining its location or specific features, which would help locate it within the city. More details on the suburbanization path, and the origin of the population, that fuels it can be found here (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098015608568 - p.3176 and Figure 2).

Line 168: I would suggest you describe what the ‘closed cities’ represent for socialist and post-socialist urbanization (how many of them were in Romania etc.), instead of putting just the reference because this law caused a significant impact on the final years of socialist sub-urbanization and early phases of urbanization in Romania.

Lines 171-172: There is an explanation for this trend here http://economic.upit.ro/repec/pdf/2015_1_7.pdf

Lines 182-185: There is a well-established threshold for the highest price eligible for funding through this program. Taking into consideration this threshold the developers’ offer is usually established close to this maximal value. More on this program and its impact on the real estate market can be found here http://economic.upit.ro/repec/pdf/2019_3_5.pdf

Lines 204-207: Even the requirements for what is considered a “modern standard” change over time: what once was considered a ‘luxury’ for early post-socialist development later becomes a part of the standard offer (e.g. big windows). See more details on this trend in Romania here http://webbut2.unitbv.ro/bu2015/series%20v/BILETIN%20I/13_Munteanu.pdf (p. 101). I would recommend you discuss this phenomenon in the Discussion section.

In addition to a general overview of residential dynamics in Bucharest, I would recommend adding a new section with a short description of the new residential developments, including their location on a map (you can find here http://www.wseas.us/e-library/transactions/environment/2010/42-261.pdf an example to this visual).

Line 263: I believe that the case studies are well-chosen: they reflect the most typical developments in Bucharest. A short description of the main features of these residential areas should be included here (the entire subsection 3.2 can be moved here).

Table 1: Was the monthly income level assessed per person, per family, or household? I would also suggest you provide an equivalent in US dollars (or EUR) to the thresholds specified because few readers are aware of the exchange rate of RON. While in the text (lines 353-358), I would recommend comparing these thresholds with the minimal and average wages in Romania to highlight a reference point for an international reader. In addition, since you further refer to the percentage of totals (e.g., in Table 2), please, consider adding one more column with figures aggregated across study areas.

Line 383: Maybe, you meant “(dis)satisfaction”? Otherwise, it is not clear…

Line 393: Please, add “test” in “…Kruskal-Wallis test does…”

Results: In the current structure, the Results section is quite heterogeneous: you present the interviews with developers, a combination of historical background and mapping follows, while in the final part you return to questionnaires with the dwellers. To make this section more straightforward I would recommend focusing it on presenting and commenting on the outputs of the interviews and questionnaires, while the description of the case studies would be moved to a separate section in the Methodological part.

Line 573: The following statement: “It was built to incorporate all urban facilities”, is quite generous, taking into consideration that, as you mention, such basic facilities as central drinking water supply and sewage do not exist here (line 592). Please, consider revising the phrase.

Lines 613-615: EUR equivalent to RON should also be put at the first mention of these amounts in the text (Table 1). See my comment above.

Line 797: In the phrase “…identified by [54] in their study…”, please, add the authors’ names.

Lines 805-806: In the phrase “… Prague by Pragăi de Špačková…” you should remove “Pragăi de”, and add a closing bracket after [25].

Discussion: There are some important documents on your topic to be adopted shortly. Please, consider also commenting on them: National Housing Strategy (https://mdlpa.ro/pages/proiecthgaprobatesnl21042022) and Spatial and Urban Planning and Construction Code (https://mdlpa.ro/pages/proiectlegeaprobarecodamenajareteritoriuurbanismconstructii). Do these documents address the problems identified in your study?

 

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this article for publication in the journal. However, taking into consideration numerous comments and suggestions, a major revision should be made before publication.

 

Author Response

We would take this opportunity to thank you for offering your time and input, as we are aware that in the current “publish or perish”, both are difficult to find and even more difficult to offer. Thank you for the helpful suggestions and recommendations. We are confident that they have considerably improved our article. We have modified the references accordingly and made clarifications and synthetic explanations for each of the following points. While we consistently tried to follow your guidelines, please keep in mind that the other reviewers have suggested that both the text and references list should be reduced. Our answers to your recommendations are as follow:

Lines 134-135: The expansion of Bucharest since 1990 has been realized in a much more complex way than you describe here (radially). You can find more details in one of the articles you cited [43] and here https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098015608568

Thanks for this very pertinent and helpful recommendation. The text has been modified accordingly while also trying not to overextend it, considering that the other reviewers requested the elimination of at least 40 titles and the shortening of the article.

 

Lines 145-146 and 162: Bucharest has not followed a typical suburbanization path. In addition, it is not clear what you mean by “inner city”. You should be more specific in defining its location or specific features, which would help locate it within the city. More details on the suburbanization path, and the origin of the population, that fuels it can be found here (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098015608568 - p.3176 and Figure 2). 

We agree with this suggestion. Thus, the text on line 162 was modified accordingly, and more details on the origin of the population were given by quoting the indicated source. Consequently, figure 1 was also modified.

 

Line 168: I would suggest you describe what the ‘closed cities’ represent for socialist and post-socialist urbanization (how many of them were in Romania etc.), instead of putting just the reference because this law caused a significant impact on the final years of socialist sub-urbanization and early phases of urbanization in Romania.

We agree with this suggestion. Accordingly, additional explanations were introduced in the text clarifying the situation of the change of domicile according to Decree no. 68 of March 17, 1966.

 

Lines 171-172: There is an explanation for this trend here http://economic.upit.ro/repec/pdf/2015_1_7.pdf

We agree with this suggestion. A reference was introduced in the text, and details were added regarding the development of Bucharest.

 

Lines 182-185: There is a well-established threshold for the highest price eligible for funding through this program. Taking into consideration this threshold the developers’ offer is usually established close to this maximal value. More on this program and its impact on the real estate market can be found here http://economic.upit.ro/repec/pdf/2019_3_5.pdf

Firstly we would like to thank you for this suggestion, which strengthens the core logic of the article. As a result, we have introduced the value of the financing thresholds guaranteed by the state for the purchase of old and new dwellings through the First Home program.

 

Lines 204-207: Even the requirements for what is considered a “modern standard” change over time: what once was considered a ‘luxury’ for early post-socialist development later becomes a part of the standard offer (e.g. big windows). See more details on this trend in Romania here http://webbut2.unitbv.ro/bu2015/series%20v/BILETIN%20I/13_Munteanu.pdf (p. 101). I would recommend you discuss this phenomenon in the Discussion section.

We agree with this suggestion. Therefore, elements related to the relationship between the real estate market and dwelling prices were introduced in the discussion section.

 

In addition to a general overview of residential dynamics in Bucharest, I would recommend adding a new section with a short description of the new residential developments, including their location on a map (you can find here http://www.wseas.us/e-library/transactions/environment/2010/42-261.pdf an example to this visual.

Your suggestion is on point and can be applied to deepen this subject in a future study. Nevertheless, our study aims to show the residential satisfaction in specific newly built nuclei. A brief description of the evolution of Bucharest was introduced in section 1.2.

It should be mentioned that a description of all new residential developments in Bucharest, in general, was beyond our research objectives.

 

Line 263: I believe that the case studies are well-chosen: they reflect the most typical developments in Bucharest. A short description of the main features of these residential areas should be included here (the entire subsection 3.2 can be moved here).

Thanks for the very pertinent and helpful recommendation. In order to respond to the requests and also not to increase the size of the article, we proceeded to move the parts that describe the characteristics of each nucleus studied to the methodology section. The motivation for choosing the three sample areas was reaffirmed in the methodology section.

 

Table 1: Was the monthly income level assessed per person, per family, or household? I would also suggest you provide an equivalent in US dollars (or EUR) to the thresholds specified because few readers are aware of the exchange rate of RON. While in the text (lines 353-358), I would recommend comparing these thresholds with the minimal and average wages in Romania to highlight a reference point for an international reader. In addition, since you further refer to the percentage of totals (e.g., in Table 2), please, consider adding one more column with figures aggregated across study areas.

Income values in RON were changed into their equivalents in EUR both in the text and in the tables. In addition, data for the minimum wage and supplementary motivations on the chosen thresholds were also offered. Also, Table 1 received a new column with values aggregated across the study areas, as per your suggestion.

 

Line 383:  Maybe, you meant “(dis)satisfaction”? Otherwise, it is not clear…

The required changes were implemented.

 

Line 393: Please, add “test” in “…Kruskal-Wallis test does…”

The required changes were implemented.

 

Results: In the current structure, the Results section is quite heterogeneous: you present the interviews with developers, a combination of historical background and mapping follows, while in the final part you return to questionnaires with the dwellers. To make this section more straightforward I would recommend focusing it on presenting and commenting on the outputs of the interviews and questionnaires, while the description of the case studies would be moved to a separate section in the Methodological part.

The required changes were implemented. The descriptive parts regarding the sample areas were moved to the methodology section while maintaining the information obtained from the analysis of the observation sheets in the results section.

 

Line 573: The following statement: “It was built to incorporate all urban facilities”, is quite generous, taking into consideration that, as you mention, such basic facilities as central drinking water supply and sewage do not exist here (line 592). Please, consider revising the phrase.

The required changes were implemented. The facilities mentioned in the text were, in fact, those relating to recreational facilities.

 

Lines 613-615: EUR equivalent to RON should also be put at the first mention of these amounts in the text (Table 1). See my comment above. 

Changes were made both to Table 1 and inside the text to improve the study’s comprehension from an international perspective. The equivalent amounts in EUR were stated at their first mention in the text.

 

Line 797: In the phrase “…identified by NUME [54] in their study…”, please, add the authors’ names. 

The required changes were implemented.

 

Lines 805-806: In the phrase “… Prague by Pragăi de Špačková…” you should remove “Pragăi de”, and add a closing bracket after [25].

The required changes were implemented.

 

Discussion: There are some important documents on your topic to be adopted shortly. Please, consider also commenting on them: National Housing Strategy (https://mdlpa.ro/pages/proiecthgaprobatesnl21042022) and Spatial and Urban Planning and Construction Code (https://mdlpa.ro/pages/proiectlegeaprobarecodamenajareteritoriuurbanismconstructii). Do these documents address the problems identified in your study?

The authors are familiar with the draft plans for the Spatial and Urban Planning and Construction Code and the National Housing Strategy. However, we have avoided discussing them in this article because they are still in the process of public debate and will certainly be amended. In addition, discussing both documents would substantially have lengthed the text.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The aim of the work is to study the satisfy demand of new residential areas in Bucharest. The work need to be improved through the following observations:

Abstract

• check the english grammar typos
• clarifly the methodology used
• add the final users of the study's results

Introduction

• The neighbourhood satisfaction is widely addressed, but it is important to note that it is also extremely related to the urban sustainable development principles. Therefore, can be useful to add some brief references that highlight this issue: Morano, P., Guarini, M. R., Tajani, F., & Anelli, D. (2020, July). Sustainable redevelopment: The cost-revenue analysis to support the urban planning decisions. In International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (pp. 968-980). Springer, Cham and Turkoglu, H. (2015). Sustainable development and quality of urban life. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 202, 10-14.
• the section 1.1 can be summarized and included in the more general introduction. the same thing can be carried out on the subsequent subparagraph

Methodology

• can be useful to add a table of each steps
• it table 1 can be important to highlight the employment rate also

Results

• synthetize the section 3.1

Author Response

Thank you for the supportive suggestions and recommendations that have helped us make valuable improvements to the article. As a result, we have made improvements to the reference list and clarified and replaced sections of the text with synthetic explanations for each of the following points.

Abstract check the english grammar typos 

• clarifly the methodology used 
• add the final users of the study's results

The abstract was modified according to your observations, for which we are grateful. We also improved its structure and synthesized parts of it. English grammar typos were checked and corrected. The methodology section was clarified, and the final users were also specified in the abstract.

 

• The neighbourhood satisfaction is widely addressed, but it is important to note that it is also extremely related to the urban sustainable development principles. Therefore, can be useful to add some brief references that highlight this issue: Morano, P., Guarini, M. R., Tajani, F., & Anelli, D. (2020, July). Sustainable redevelopment: The cost-revenue analysis to support the urban planning decisions. In International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications(pp. 968-980). Springer, Cham and Turkoglu, H. (2015). Sustainable development and quality of urban life. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 202, 10-14.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have introduced a paragraph in which we have mentioned that residential satisfactional is intrinsically linked to the principles of sustainable urban development. We have also included the two suggested papers as we are confident they increase the value of our manuscript.

 

• the section 1.1 can be summarized and included in the more general introduction. the same thing can be carried out on the subsequent subparagraph 

Subchapter 1.1. Residential attractiveness in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries is an x-ray of this phenomenon in this part of Europe, which was dominated by totalitarian regimes until the 1990s and which has left its mark on many aspects of those societies, including the residential level, while the subchapter 1.2. Residential dynamics in Bucharest during the post-communist period refers strictly to the situation in Bucharest. By summarizing the two subchapters and including them in the Introduction chapter, we consider that many of the ideas regarding residential dynamics and satisfaction in general for the states of Central and Eastern Europe, particularly for Bucharest, would be lost, especially since an international readership might not be fully familiarized with this particular theme. Thank you for the suggestion to cut back from the text. We did this to some extent while also having to consider other suggestions that we add further details related to the evolution of Bucharest.

 

 Methodology 

• can be useful to add a table of each steps
• it table 1 can be important to highlight the employment rate also 

Thank you very much for this suggestion. Accordingly, a figure illustrating the methodological framework was added to section 2. Methodology, thus improving the readability and the understanding of the research methodology.

The employment rate could not be introduced in Table 1, since information on this subject was not collected from residents as part of the main socio-demographic variables when applying the questionnaires.

 

Results

• synthetize the section 3.1

The section was readdressed. The introduction part was shortened, and the developers' direct quotes were summarised. Thank you for this observation; we feel that it will improve the readability of the text.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript discussed how do the new residential areas in Bucharest satisfy population demand and where do they fall short. Generally, it is an interesting study, and the authors have made many efforts to this study. However, the manuscript should be reorganized. Although the length of the manuscript is long, it is hard to understand, because the description of the methodology and results were not well-organized.

 

1. The authors should use more concise words to describe the methods, viewpoints and conclusions of their study. It seems like that the total word count of the manuscript more than 10000 words. Besides, the number of references in this manuscript ups to 105. However, I think some of the references in this manuscript are not necessary. As a research manuscript, the number of references should be no more than 60.

 

2. It is better to list the information of elements in a table (line 269-272). Authors should explain why they used these elements, and a brief introduction how these elements influence the quality of living and housing, and introduce the data sources for these elements.

 

3. The description of the methodology is ambiguous. Authors should use a flowchart or formulas rather than chunks of boring words to clearly describe the research methods they used.

 

4. In line 278. ‘… with a 50m resolution’. However, the raw resolution of the Landsat images is usually 30m or 15m. Why did you obtain land use maps with a 50m resolution?

 

5. In section 3.1, authors should use concise language or numbers to summarize the key points of the developer. However, they just put what the developers said without any summary.

   

Author Response

This manuscript discussed how do the new residential areas in Bucharest satisfy population demand and where do they fall short. Generally, it is an interesting study, and the authors have made many efforts to this study. However, the manuscript should be reorganized. Although the length of the manuscript is long, it is hard to understand, because the description of the methodology and results were not well-organized.

According to your recommendations, the authors reorganized the manuscript and synthesized the methodology and subchapters from the results section, eliminating reference titles accordingly. However, according to the recommendations of the other reviewers, it was necessary to clarify certain legislative aspects, add reference sources, as well as additional arguments and analyzes, which led to the impossibility of considerably reducing the manuscript' number of pages.

 

1. The authors should use more concise words to describe the methods, viewpoints and conclusions of their study. It seems like that the total word count of the manuscript more than 10000 words. Besides, the number of references in this manuscript ups to 105. However, I think some of the references in this manuscript are not necessary. As a research manuscript, the number of references should be no more than 60. 

The methodology section was synthesized, and its overall readability and flow were improved according to your helpful suggestions. Repetitive or redundant explanations were eliminated, the text was compressed, and specific references were removed along with some parts of the text. However, an important part of the references was kept, as they support our scientific discourse's coherence and prove a solid documentation basis that motivates the research's logic.

 

1. It is better to list the information of elements in a table (line 269-272). Authors should explain why they used these elements, and a brief introduction how these elements influence the quality of living and housing, and introduce the data sources for these elements.

The variables were removed from the text and included in the flowchart that now accompanies the methodology section. Their use was necessary due to the fact that they are important elements that influence housing quality, as stipulated in the urban planning legislation. The sources for these elements were data collection following the application of the field observation sheet.

 

1. The description of the methodology is ambiguous. Authors should use a flowchart or formulas rather than chunks of boring words to clearly describe the research methods they used.

As explained above, the methodology section was improved according to your suggestions. Moreover, in order to improve the readability of this chapter and make it more comprehensible, following your additional recommendations, a flowchart that clarifies and synthesizes the methodological approach of the paper was introduced (Figure 2).

 

1. In line 278. '… with a 50m resolution'. However, the raw resolution of the Landsat images is usually 30m or 15m. Why did you obtain land use maps with a 50m resolution?

Thank you for your comment. The resolution of the Landsat images used in our study is indeed 30 m. An error occurred, but with your help, it has now been corrected.

 

1. In section 3.1, authors should use concise language or numbers to summarize the key points of the developer. However, they just put what the developers said without any summary.

The section was readdressed. The introduction part was shortened, and the developers' direct quotes were summarised. Thank you for this observation; we feel that it will improve the readability of the text.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for answering my comments! The article looks better after the review, however, there are some minor errors, which should be addressed before acceptance.

Comments regarding newly introduced text:

Line 390: There is an inconsistency in the years the Decree was issued: 1966 in the text and 1976 in the reference list.

I strongly advise you to doublecheck all references since the numbers are not consistent with the list: both chronological order and correctness are distorted, e.g. (1) after the citation 96 in line 1791, in line 1913 you cite the source [105] for the first time, while, later on, smaller numbers [97, 98 etc] follow in line 2002, also used for the first time; (2) in line 2010 you refer to the documents to be adopted [101, 102], but the correct references should be, according to your list [102, 103]; (3) the source [107] is not cited.

 

Best regards,

Author Response

Thank you for the constructive comments. All suggested changes have been made.

Reviewer 2 Report

The efforts made by the authors are appreciated.

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable comments that led to the consistent improvement of the article.

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript has been substantially improved.

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable comments that led to the consistent improvement of the article.