How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect the Future of Urban Life? Early Evidence from Highly-Educated Respondents in the United States

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents the findings of a COVID19-based survey that examines the effects of COVID19 pandemic on long-term changes. In general, the paper is well-written, however, I have some concerns about the data collected in this study. I am a bit skeptical on the result analysis based on variable responses. My specific comments are below:

1. The abstract is well-written abstract. However, I would like an explanation/discussion from the authors why should/shouldn’t data be collected from the vulnerable population group (elder/teenage people, low-income, part-timers, students, etc.).
2. Page 1, line 17-22: need references. There are number of articles right now that support these claims. Cite 2-3 studies here.
3. Why are there no background studies? This article requires a discussion on existing studies of COVID-19’s impact on travel behaviour. A number of studies exist. I need to see a good discussion of existing literature and how this study is different from the existing studies before accepting the article. The authors can include a table of existing studies, and from there add a brief discussion on those studies. Following the discussion, they should identify research gaps and contributions of this study clearly.
4. If any respondent is missing some questions, why didn’t the authors exclude the respondent from the survey, instead consider the responses s/he provided? Isn’t it under-/over-estimating the results?
5. Page 3, line 70: It states - “The sample analyzed here strongly over-represents highly-educated, high-income households”, although the abstract states that the data were primary collected from such households. So, was the survey administered on such households or was it found after the survey that majority respondents were from such households? If it is the second case, rephrase line 11-14 in abstract. Reading line 73, I feel like it is the second case.
6. Did the authors check the validity of the survey? Did they compare with census or any existing survey? If not, why? Explain.
7. Line 94: grammar – came from.
8. Line 94-98: any reason behind these findings?
9. Table 1: in my opinion, “n” should be same for all variables. Please explain why the authors do not think so?
10. I can see in table 1 that the survey is compared with the census. But they did not mention anything about it before the table. Please state somewhere before the table that the survey is compared with the census (from 2018 1-year American Community Survey, density from 2014–2018 5-year American Community Survey).
11. There are huge differences between the survey distributions vs the census. How is the survey valid then?
12. Conclusion is not well-written. Include some of the discussions in conclusion or combine the discussion and conclusion section into “discussion and concluding remarks”.
13. Discuss some future research from modeling perspective. Do the authors have any plans/What types of modeling approach do the authors suggest to model the changes in residential mobility/real estate or vehicle ownership decisions or activity-travel pattern or emission modeling using the data collected from the survey?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this study, the authors performed a study on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban life based on their data collected from the United States. The authors aimed to find if "new normal" exists in the post-COVID-19 period. Overall, the paper reads interesting and presents in good quality. The reviewer has the following major concerns:

1) In your survey, the data was collected from March and April 2020 in the United States (this is the first wave of the COVID-19 cases). From the middle of June, the United States has witnessed another wave of the pandemic. And more likely, there is another wave is coming in the winter. So the reviewer just questions if the collected data is sufficient enough to support your conclusions on the changing trends of urban life after the pandemic period. 

2) In your survey, the data is collected from 46 states and the District of Columbia. As we know, the coronavirus outbreak and development are very different for the states. There is no discussion on this. The reviewer would expect to see the discussion of different trends of urban life in some representative states (for example, New York, California, and Texas). 

3) The last question is still about the collected data. Is the two-month survey data is enough to reflect the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on urban life? Please elaborate. 

4) The reviewer would also suggest changing your title to "How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect the Future of Urban Life in the United States?". Since your data is only for the United States. Again, the outbreak, development, and control of COVID-19 are very different in the world (e.g., Europe, Asia, etc.), the impacts would also vary significantly. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment. This includes our response to both reviewers.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors accommodated all the comments well. I have no further question. The article is in good shape now.