Residents’ Quality of Life in Smart Cities: A Systematic Literature Review

Reviewer 1

The used timestamp (2020-2022 June 20th) for the systematic review is very short. Please add a justification

We have explained this in Lines 63-80. Actually, we began with a full bibliometric review, but then selected only the most recent articles for close reading. We should have included the earlier stages of the process in our first version.

The section entitled ‘Location of Sites’ could be improved. Since the systematic review is about smart cities, it would be relevant to list the cities analyzed in the 38 selected. For example, you could build a Table with three columns, i.e., region, country, city).

Thank you for the suggestion. We have now included a Table with three columns as suggested (Table 1).

In the references section, please write journal names in lower case for all references.

Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected this.

Reviewer 2

I hope the authors can clarify the rationale behind limiting the literature search after 2020. Is there a particular reason why literature between 2016 and 2029 should be excluded? This cutoff threshold needs to be justified. In any case, there may be a shift in narratives about QoL in the context of SC during and after the pandemic. It would be a missed opportunity if earlier literature were excluded.

We have explained this in Lines 63-80. Actually, we began with a full bibliometric review, but then selected only the most recent articles for close reading. We should have included the earlier stages of the process in our first version.

We made a conscious decision not to focus specifically on the impacts of the COVID Pandemic, as we believed that it would constitute another paper altogether. However, we did not deliberately avoid the subject – if it was a priority in the research, we included it.

There lacks a clear connection between the clustering analysis and the subsequent themes discussed in detail in Section 3.5. The clustering analysis on keywords and abstracts is not well explained and thereby appears as an ad hoc exercise. The two figures (Figure 4 and Figure 5) are not fully articulated such that readers do not know what the key takeaways are from the clustering analysis. The transition to the five sub-themes is lacking. Simply saying ‘close reading of the 38 articles…’ will not cut it.

We agree with this comment. We started with a quantitative approach based on Keywords and Abstracts and then moved to a qualitative approach which was much more informative. The cluster analysis was derived from the quantitative work. Although the cluster analysis is visually interesting, it is not as informative as the close reading of the texts which eventually resulted in the choice of main themes to analyse. We have therefore removed Figures 4 and 5.

Figure 1 – Please report the number of excluded articles under each ‘elimination reason’

Unfortunately, we are not able to give exact numbers for each exclusion criteria, only the reasons for exclusion.

Figure 2 - Would be more informative to denote each journal’s academic discipline in this figure

We tried to fulfil this request, but it is very difficult to determine what the exact disciplinary focus is of many of the journals. Some of them include mixed disciplines (e.g. communications and technology). We therefore had to stay with the analysis by journal title instead.

Table 2 – Can you organise methods by quantitative/qualitative/literature review

Thank you for the suggestion. This has been done in a pie chart (Figure 4).

Figure 4 and Figure 5 – Each needs a legend to explain the colour palette and the density scale, respectively

We have now removed Figures 4 and 5 as we agree that they are not informative enough and could actually lead to confusion about the most important themes.

Table 3 – I think it would be more informative to organise the indicators by positive/neutral/negative narratives. Some key issues surrounding SC (e.g., privacy and surveillance, social justice) are not highlighted in your paper. I think it makes the paper too biased in its tone

This is an interesting suggestion but difficult to implement in the Table, as most authors have not been very specific about whether the indicators or domains are positive or negative. They tend instead to rank them according to importance or priority, as we discuss.

However, we have paid more attention to the issues of privacy, security and social justice. Going back through the articles, it seems as if the terms ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion’ are more often used to represent ‘social justice’. We have included a couple of sentences (Lines 429-431).

Surveillance and privacy are mentioned sometimes, but often only in the Literature Reviews. Privacy is more of a concern in North America than Europe, it seems. Surveillance is mentioned much more frequently in articles about Eastern cities, especially in China. It was also a major concern for older residents. We have highlighted in the text how and where these themes feature (Lines 289-302)

In terms of writing, there are a few ambiguous or tentative terms and sentences that need to be clarified or rewritten.

We have gone back through the text and have addressed this point where we can. For example, we have often changed the word ‘suggested’ to something more definite and positive. We removed the word ‘may’ and replaced it with ‘can’ or ‘could’.

Pg2, L52: ‘smart development and citizens’ well-being’ needs to be clarified. Or I could argue you need to add these two terms in the literature search as well

This is a good point, thank you. We actually decided to use the search word ‘quality of life’ instead of ‘well-being’ as it is used more frequently in SC articles. Even though the terms are often used synonymously, it seems that well-being usually refers more to the subjective well-being of residents rather than the wider phenomenon of QoL. We have changed Line 52 to “smart cities and resident quality of life” to avoid confusion.

Pg5, L148: ‘smart living’ is not defined when it first appeared in the paper

Thank you for highlighting this. We have defined it the first time we use the term (Lines 97-98)

Pg11, L263: The first sentence is written in a very tentative way. Furthermore, ‘priorities’ needs to be clarified. At the moment, it is very ambiguous what ‘priorities’ the authors referred to

Thank you for this observation. We have changed the sentence accordingly (Lines 261-263)

Pg11, L276: ‘in a holistic fashion’ is ambiguous. It sounds like the authors refer to a systematic or multi-dimensioned SC initiative. In this case, I suggest that the authors formally define what a ‘holistic’ SC initiative means

This term was used in the cited article, but unfortunately, it is not explained by those authors. However, we have interpreted it and changed the sentence so that the meaning is clearer (Lines 302-304)

Pg12, L331: ‘Citizens’ lived experience’ sounds like a made-up terminology. Can you rephrase it based on the literature?

Actually, we are mainly talking about ‘smart living’ in these sections, but we were trying to use a different terminology. It therefore seems sensible to use the term ‘smart living’ instead so we have made changes in Lines 19, 232 and 360.

The Conclusion and Recommendations section lacks a focal point. The authors should address who the target audience is and what key takeaways they need to know from this systematic literature review.

Thank you for the comment. We have strengthened the Conclusion and explained why the research is especially useful for city authorities, planners and developers.

Reviewer 3

The method and how the main themes are identified needs a bit of elaboration to make it clearer. 

Thank you for the comment. We have removed the cluster analysis (Figures 4 and 5) and just refer to our close reading of the 38 articles to avoid confusion.

Why are the authors using referencing in the conclusion? The conclusion should reflect the opinion of the authors. 

We have removed the references from the Conclusion and we re-wrote it slightly to reflect our own views rather than those of other authors.