Influence Mechanism of Transportation Integration on Industrial Agglomeration in Urban Agglomeration Theory—Taking the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration as an Example

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Although I am not a native English speaker and I do not feel qualified to judge the English language and style, I kindly suggest that you should review the work carefully in terms of the language.

52: the differences on the relationship (in the relationship)

126: which is 2.26 times of the national proportion (without "of")

175: as consider data availability (as considering ...)

184: cities instead of citie

253: Since there is no direct data to reflect labor cost with, (without "with")

etc.

Author Response

Dear Review 1:

We would like to thank Review 1 for giving us he opportunity to revise our manuscript.

We thanks for your careful read and thoughtful comments on previous draft.

We have carefully taken your comments into consideration in preparing our revision, which has resulted in a paper that is clearer,more compelling, and broader.

The attachment is our response to your comments.

Thanks for all the help.

Best wishes,

Dr.Wei

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article 'Influence mechanism of transportation integration on industrial agglomeration in urban agglomeration' is a unique research paper which tries to study the parallel dynamic development of transport flows and economy in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration betwen 2011 and 2020 with specific attention to the comparison between 2019 and 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

The scientific work is performed in a complex way, intertwining an array of methods and well selected secondary data sources for 3 experiments inder the umbrella of 2 hypotheses. Yet, the work has many shortages in terms of clarity and quality of writing which makes it hard to understand and vague, especally at crucial parts of paragraphs with conclusions from many of the sections.

The introduction is decent and inclusive into the topic of the paper although parts of it can be valuable for the literature review.

The references are neighter comprehensive enough (only 17, and just 7 for section 2 'Relevant works') nor addressing the methods used, hardly linking theory and the best choice of methods to be applied in this case. They sources are also not well cited in terms of MDPI standard.

The research design is especially unclear and not well explained in the part addressing the two hypotheses which come bolded from nowhere in the text.

The methods are relatively well described but not cited, as they are not invented by the authors. Parts of the explanations have to be edited. The data sources are not cited correctly.

The results can be better visualized by at least one map with the ranking from the calculations which can be very beneficial for the discussion that interprets further the dynamics behind the agglomeration pattern during the studied period.

More specific comments are marked in the attached pdf.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Review 2:

We would like to thank Review 2 for giving us he opportunity to revise our manuscript.

We thanks for your careful read and thoughtful comments on previous draft.

We have carefully taken your comments into consideration in preparing our revision, which has resulted in a paper that is clearer,more compelling, and broader.

The attachment is our response to your comments.

Thanks for all the help.

Best wishes,

Dr.Wei

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The presented article is a description of analyzes of an important (from the point of view of research on spatial conditions of economic growth) issue, which is the impact of the expansion and integration of the transport system on the process of geographical concentration of industry. This was done on the example of the urban agglomeration of Yangtze Delta River. The authors accurately, though superficially, place the analyzed problem in the context of the theory of New Economic Geography and accurately define and take into account other variables that could have influenced the aforementioned geographical concentration of industry.

The article has a logical and clear structure. Literature sources are sufficient and properly cited, tables and figures are legible, and the conclusions (mostly) result from the conducted analyzes.

The text, however, has several major disadvantages that prevent it from being published in the presented form:

- the quality of the translation is a big challenge in understanding the intentions of the authors and the content of the article. There are many sentences and expressions in the work, the structure of which does not allow for easy and precise understanding of the presented content. Before possible publication, this aspect of the work must be corrected. An example of such an exceptionally complex sentence is the sentence in lines 160-166;

- the authors of the study use relatively advanced research tools and methods, adequate to the research problem under study. However, these tools are used to verify quite trivial research hypotheses. From the analysis of the available literature, it is known how the expansion and integration of the transport network and changes in labor costs will affect the spatial concentration of industry, and the presented research only confirms this. In this aspect, the article does not bring much new to the existing state of knowledge;

- an important factor limiting the value of the article is the geographic scope of the research limited to the Yangtze Delta River. Although the Chinese economy, including its important part, i.e. the Yangtze Delta River, is a very important element of the global socio-economic system, such a small spatial scope of research limits the possibility of drawing universal conclusions and thus reduces the usefulness of the presented research for a potential global reader.

In their research, authors should focus on resolving less obvious research hypotheses (for example those related to determining the net effect of benefits and disadvantages of agglomeration) and referring the obtained results to other studies and other geographical conditions, thanks to which it will be possible to formulate more universal conclusions.

There are also some minor shortcomings at work, e.g .:

- the authors do not always specify the meaning of the terms they use, e.g. regional advantage (lines 29 and 38);

- there is no map showing the geographical location of the Yangtze Delta River and the development of the transport network in its area in the studied years. This would facilitate the receipt of the data presented in the work,

- some conclusions are not confirmed in the presented analyzes, see lines 470-472.

Author Response

Dear Review 3:

We would like to thank Review 3 for giving us he opportunity to revise our manuscript.

We thanks for your careful read and thoughtful comments on previous draft.

We have carefully taken your comments into consideration in preparing our revision, which has resulted in a paper that is clearer,more compelling, and broader.

The attachment is our response to your comments.

Thanks for all the help.

Best wishes,

Dr.Wei

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I feel that the changes made by the authors allow to publish the reviewed article in a present form.