Review Reports - Service of General Interest in the Rhenish Coal-Mining Area in Context of Structural Change

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The methods used are correct and adequately described in the paper.

At the end of the introduction, the purpose of the research should be clearly defined. To make the article more readable for the reader, it is worth briefly characterizing the layout of the article (each chapter).

It is also worth clearly distinguishing a separate chapter for the conclusions.

The literature cited is relevant but it is worth extending, especially in the discussion section it is worth relating the results obtained to other studies.

In the discussion it is also useful to refer to the literature cited in the introduction..

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comments.

Please find attached the revised article.

Kind regards,

Saskia Gall-Röhrig

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper discusses an interesting and potentially relevant scientific problem. It is based on very nice data and an innovative method. However, I have some concerns with regard to the scientific merit of the recent version of the paper. Therefore, I suggest a thorough revision.

My main issue with the paper is that it is mainly descriptive and its contribution to the scientific debate is not made clear enough.

I would suggest to take on one of the two revision strategies to increase the scientific contribution of the paper.

Option 1: Focus on the method to measure and map the accessibility of SGI. The description of the Kernel-density estimate is rather long and its application to SGI seems to be interesting and relevant. The discussion of the applicability and transferability could become a main analytical focus of the paper.

Option 2: Focus on explanation and assessment of the results related to the applicability of the results in a regional development strategy. This use for strategy development is mentioned. However, it would be interesting for the reader how the presented results could be transferred into a strategy. To do that, it would be necessary to understand why the accessibility is how it is (explanation) and in which part it is really problematic and needs to be improved (assessment, evaluation). A revised paper could say more on this and link it more closely to the normative debate about equal or equivalent (‘gleichwertig’ in German) living conditions.

Other aspects:

At the moment, the paper has no real conclusion. It simply ends after the discussion. A conclusion should be added which outlines the main scientific contribution in relation to revision strategy 1 or 2.

In addition, it is stressed in the title and in the introduction that the paper is about the Rhenish coal-mining area and the phasing out of coal mining is also briefly touched. However, there is no relation in the paper between this industrial/mining history and the recent transformation and the services of general interest. I suggest to strengthen the argument why this particular region is a relevant study area and (probably) not stress the issue of coal mining too much. At least to my understanding, this structural change is not the main factor that explains the spatial distribution of the SGIs.

The mentioning of Covid-19 in the discussion is mainly unrelated to the previous findings. I would also tend to skip it completely because it is not reflected in the data anyway.