The Heterogenous Demand for Urban Parks between Home Buyers and Renters: Evidence from Beijing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments to authors

Abstract:

Line 12: Here authors mention urban green spaces (UGS) which in my understanding covers different types of greenery. However, in the paper, only urban parks are being analyzed. I would suggest considering to change UGS to “urban parks”.

General remark: Just to make it clear, while mentioning “homes” authors refer to flats/apartments or houses? Or maybe a mixture of both? I am not sure that this was clarified in the text. I would suggest adding an explanation as it might be useful for future reviews or meta-studies.

 

Introduction:

Lines 27-32: I am a bit puzzled by the fact that the authors start the manuscript by discussing climate change and heat island; however, those were never discussed again.

Line 38: “Related research” – do authors refer to some other them HPM research there? Not clear what related research is meant.

Lines 39-41: Please add references to “…further studies that discuss different demands of home buyers and renters for urban parks”, i.e. for the statement in the second part of the sentence after the comma.

Line 72-73: “Moreover, renters are no longer eager to access the housing market.” Does that mean that they are no longer intend to buy a housing unit, right? That is a very interesting fact. I wonder whether there was some kind of public survey on that or that is just an assumption of authors. It was not very clear from the text.

Line 76: Are there any other purposes of the study besides the “main”? Otherwise, I would suggest removing this word.

Lines 76-79: In case there is more than one transaction website, it might be useful to specify it.

Lines 89-91: Please consider re-phrasing a sentence as it is hard to read.

General remark: in this part of the manuscript, I was expecting to see an explanation of why this study is interesting for the scientific community and which gaps in the literature it can feel, i.e., study novelty. For instance, what I find very valuable is that authors analyze buying and renting of housing units in parallel. I wonder why this fact is not mentioned as a novelty. I am aware of only one study so far that analyzed buying and renting within the same study.

 

2 Real estate market

Line 92: I found a bit difficult to follow the terms “real estate market” and “housing market”. I assume that the first term is associated with renting and the second one with the buying of housing units. It might be worth making it clear in the manuscript. Or to use consistent terminology.

Line 101: “…it is not easy to live and rent in Beijing”. Please support this statement with relevant examples.

Line 102: Please provide explanations or examples of “green resources”.

Lines 11-113: It is hard to follow, please consider rephrasing a sentence.

Lines 119-120: Please consider moving this sentence before you naming those districts in lines 114-116. While reading those names it was not clear for me at the beginning what is that about, thus it might be helpful to first explain that those are districts and only then naming them.

Line 117: please consider adding a sentence explaining the concept of “rings” in Beijing, as it might be not clear for all readers.

 

3. Materials and methods

Line 149: I never came across studies where month fixed-effects were considered. Usually, these are years. I am curious to understand why the authors think that particular months have an impact?

Line 152: Please explain what ‘jiedao’ stands for.

Line 175: Please add information about how the “greening rate” is measured.

Line 196: In Table 4 authors use the term “Propertycosts”, while here you used the term “Property charges”. I would suggest using consistent terminology.

Lines 203-205: Why these specific distances were chosen, i.e., subway station within 1000m and schools and hospitals within 500m?

Line 212 and Table 4: Please add units that were used for computation distance to the park.

Table 4: Please add an explanation regarding the computation and meaning of the “Plot ratio”.

Table 4: for variable Park "yes is 1; no is 0" is missing.

Lines 220-221: How is “better external park accessibility” measured? It is not clear from the text.

Line 226: Why 800 m (not 1000m or 500m) is selected?

 

4. Empirical results

Table 4: Variable ‘distance to park’ is not included in models (1), (2), (4), (5) – what was the hypothesis/intention behind? I don’t think it was explained in the text.

Table 4: It might be helpful to mention what is being reported in brackets. I assume those are t-values; however, it might be helpful if readers are not guessing.

Lines 327 on: Similar to Table 4, to save the readers’ time on understanding the difference between models (1), (2) and (3), (4) – it might be worth mentioning it in the text.

Line 332: Property fees appeared to have a significant role in the analysis. Therefore, it might be worth to write 1-2 sentences in section 2 about those fees. E.g., what is covered by those, what are the ranges, etc.

 

5. Discussion and conclusion

Lines 417-421: are there other studies those findings correspond or contradict yours?

General remark: I was wondering if the undertaken study encountered any limitations and if authors have in mind ideas for further research.

 

Author Response

Response to reviewer

 

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and encouragement. We fully understand and agree with your judgments and suggestions. Therefore, we strictly implement all modifications following your advice and instructions. The following content is the detailed modification and explanation of your comment.

 

Comment 1: Line 12: Here authors mention urban green spaces (UGS) which in my understanding covers different types of greenery. However, in the paper, only urban parks are being analyzed. I would suggest considering to change UGS to “urban parks”.

Response:

Thank you very much for your attention and suggestion. Urban park is an important part of urban green space, which plays a key role in the regulation of urban environment. We agree with your comments and have replaced the urban green space with the urban park in the full text.

 

Comment 2: General remark: Just to make it clear, while mentioning “homes” authors refer to flats/apartments or houses? Or maybe a mixture of both? I am not sure that this was clarified in the text. I would suggest adding an explanation as it might be useful for future reviews or meta-studies.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we are sorry that we do not provide the information on the meaning of the “homes”. In this research, “home” is a mixture of both which includes houses, apartments, and flat, etc. We have added this information in the Footnote 1 on page 1.

 

Introduction:

 

Comment 3: Lines 27-32: I am a bit puzzled by the fact that the authors start the manuscript by discussing climate change and heat island; however, those were never discussed again.

Response:

Thanks for your comment. The topic of the special issue is about the challenge of climate change to cities. Since urban parks can adjust the microclimate to deal with the adverse effects of climate change, we hope to have a deeper understanding of urban parks by studying residents' demands for urban parks, so as to make suggestions for the planning and management of urban parks. Finally, properly planned and managed urban parks can be used to meet the challenges of climate change.

We have added some discussions at the Line 616-617, Line 643-645. Certainly, if you still think this part of the content is inappropriate, we can remove the content related to the challenge of climate change to cities.

 

Comment 4: Line 38: “Related research” – do authors refer to some other them HPM research there? Not clear what related research is meant.

Response:

Thank you for your comments, we apologize for this misunderstanding and have rephrased this sentence at Line 38-39. We have added some other HPM references here.

“Previous research on the demand for urban parks only confirms that residents have a strong demand for urban parks [9-13].”

 

Comment 5: Lines 39-41: Please add references to “…further studies that discuss different demands of home buyers and renters for urban parks”, i.e. for the statement in the second part of the sentence after the comma.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide enough information on this sentence. We have rephrased this sentence and added references at Line 40-42.

“However, few studies take into account the heterogeneous demands of different residents—that is, the different demands of home buyers and renters for urban parks, which need greater consideration [14].”

 

Comment 6: Line 72-73: “Moreover, renters are no longer eager to access the housing market.” Does that mean that they are no longer intend to buy a housing unit, right? That is a very interesting fact. I wonder whether there was some kind of public survey on that or that is just an assumption of authors. It was not very clear from the text.

Response:

Thanks for your attention and suggestion, we apologize for the misunderstanding. We have rephrased this sentence at Line 95-96. This conclusion is based on the phenomenon described in the previous sentence.

“Renting houses has become the new normal for young people in megacities, and most renters are under the age of 35, among which 21–25 year-olds account for one third of the total. This phenomenon reveals that young people no longer choose to buy a house prematurely, but prefer to rent a house.”

 

Comment 7: Line 76: Are there any other purposes of the study besides the “main”? Otherwise, I would suggest removing this word.

Response:

Thank you for your careful review, we totally agree with your suggestions and have removed this word.

 

Comment 8: Lines 76-79: In case there is more than one transaction website, it might be useful to specify it.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide detailed information on the website. We have added this information in the Footnote 4 on page 2.

 

Comment 9: Lines 89-91: Please consider re-phrasing a sentence as it is hard to read.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize for the misunderstanding. We have rephrased this sentence at Line 118-119.

“The real estate market is closely related to the livelihood of residents. A healthy real estate market can ease social conflicts and stabilize regional economies [30]”

 

Comment 10: General remark: in this part of the manuscript, I was expecting to see an explanation of why this study is interesting for the scientific community and which gaps in the literature it can feel, i.e., study novelty. For instance, what I find very valuable is that authors analyze buying and renting of housing units in parallel. I wonder why this fact is not mentioned as a novelty. I am aware of only one study so far that analyzed buying and renting within the same study.

Response:

Thanks for your encouragement. Inspired by your comments, we have already added content about the heterogeneous demands of home buyers and renters to reflect the innovation of this article (Line 39-42, Line 71-79, and Line 99-100).

 

2 Real estate market

 

Comment 11: Line 92: I found a bit difficult to follow the terms “real estate market” and “housing market”. I assume that the first term is associated with renting and the second one with the buying of housing units. It might be worth making it clear in the manuscript. Or to use consistent terminology.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize for the misunderstanding. The real estate market includes the housing sales market and the rental market. We have added this information in the Footnote 2 on page 2.

 

Comment 12: Line 101: “…it is not easy to live and rent in Beijing”. Please support this statement with relevant examples.

Response:

Thank you for your comments, we apologize that we do not provide the information on this sentence. We have rephrased this sentence at Line 129-130. The relevant example is above this sentence, which is about the housing affordability and policy of hukou.

 

Comment 13: Line 102: Please provide explanations or examples of “green resources”.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not explain clearly on the meaning of the “green resources”. Green resources in the urban context include urban parks, community greening, forest landscape, etc. We have added this information in the Footnote 7 at Line131.

 

Comment 14: Lines 11-113: It is hard to follow, please consider rephrasing a sentence.

Response:

Thank you for your comments, we apologize for our error. We have rephrased this sentence at Line 143-145.

“The spatial distribution of housing in Beijing presents the following characteristics, first, there are more houses in the north of Beijing than in the south, second, there are more houses in the east than in the west.”

 

Comment 15: Lines 119-120: Please consider moving this sentence before you naming those districts in lines 114-116. While reading those names it was not clear for me at the beginning what is that about, thus it might be helpful to first explain that those are districts and only then naming them.

Response:

Thank you for your careful review, we have moved this sentence to Line 139-140.

 

Comment 16: Line 117: please consider adding a sentence explaining the concept of “rings” in Beijing, as it might be not clear for all readers.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide enough information on the meaning of the “ring”. We have added the explanation at the Line 148-149.

“Ring road refers to the 8 existing and planned ring highways in Beijing.”

 

3. Materials and methods

 

Comment 17: Line 149: I never came across studies where month fixed-effects were considered. Usually, these are years. I am curious to understand why the authors think that particular months have an impact?

Response:

Thank you for your careful examination, and we apologize for the misunderstanding. In the original text should be “year fixed effects”, not “month fixed effects”. We have replaced “year fixed effects” with “month fixed effects”.

 

Comment 18: Line 152: Please explain what ‘jiedao’ stands for.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide the complete information on the meaning of the “jiedao”. “jiedao” is the sub-district and basic administrative management unit of China. We have added the explanation at the Line 193-194.

 

Comment 19: Line 175: Please add information about how the “greening rate” is measured.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide the information on the computation of the “greening rate”. We have added the information in the Footnote 9 on page 4.

 

Comment 20: Line 196: In Table 4 authors use the term “Propertycosts”, while here you used the term “Property charges”. I would suggest using consistent terminology.

Response:

Thank you for your careful review. We have replaced property costs with property charges.

 

Comment 21: Lines 203-205: Why these specific distances were chosen, i.e., subway station within 1000m and schools and hospitals within 500m?

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we agree with your comments. The reason is that in a metropolis like Beijing, the convenience of the subway makes many people prefer the subway, so the influence of subway stations is wider than that of schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, because subway stations are not as dense as bus stations, the number of subway stations within 500m will decrease. Therefore, to be more accurate, we choose 1000m to calculate the number of subway stations. Meanwhile, the results are consistent regardless of which classification we chose. We have added this explanation at Line 250-265.

 

Comment 22: Line 212 and Table 4: Please add units that were used for computation distance to the park.

Response:

Thank you for your careful review, we apologize for the omission. We have added the unit in the Table 1.

 

Comment 23: Table 4: Please add an explanation regarding the computation and meaning of the “Plot ratio”.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not explain clearly on the meaning of the “Plot ratio”. We have added this information in the Table 1.

 

Comment 24: Table 4: for variable Park "yes is 1; no is 0" is missing.

Response:

Thank you for your careful review, we sorry for the omission. We have added this information in the Table 1.

 

Comment 25: Lines 220-221: How is “better external park accessibility” measured? It is not clear from the text.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide enough information on the measured standard. We use “Dis_park lower than 800 m” to reflect “better external park accessibility”. We have revised in the text (Line 283-293).

 

Comment 26: Line 226: Why 800 m (not 1000m or 500m) is selected?

Response:

Thank you for your comments, we apologize that we do not explain clearly on the selection criteria. “800m” is the median of Dis_park. We have put the explanation at Line 283-284. Meanwhile, we find that the results are consistent regardless of which classification we chose.

 

4. Empirical results

 

Comment 27: Table 4: Variable ‘distance to park’ is not included in models (1), (2), (4), (5) – what was the hypothesis/intention behind? I don’t think it was explained in the text.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, and we apologize for the misunderstanding caused by the error. In the original text should be “column”, not “equation”. The assumptions behind the models are in Section 3.1. We have replaced the “column” with “equation”.

 

Comment 28: Table 4: It might be helpful to mention what is being reported in brackets. I assume those are t-values; however, it might be helpful if readers are not guessing.

Response:

Thank you for your careful review, we have added the notes in both the text and the table (Table 4-6, and Line 319, 443-444, and 495-496).

 

Comment 29: Lines 327 on: Similar to Table 4, to save the readers’ time on understanding the difference between models (1), (2) and (3), (4) – it might be worth mentioning it in the text.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide the detailed information on the difference between models (1), (2) and (3), (4). In the original text should be “column”, not “equation”. We have replaced the column with equation.

 

Comment 30: Line 332: Property fees appeared to have a significant role in the analysis. Therefore, it might be worth to write 1-2 sentences in section 2 about those fees. E.g., what is covered by those, what are the ranges, etc.

Response:

Thanks for your attention and suggestion, we have already made relevant descriptive statistical analysis of property fees at Table 3 and Line297-305 in Section 3.2. If you think this article still needs a more detailed description of the property fees, we can make revisions immediately.

 

5. Discussion and conclusion

 

Comment 31: Lines 417-421: are there other studies those findings correspond or contradict yours?

Response:

Thank you for your comments, we have not yet found a view similar to our research results. If you have relevant literature you can provide to us, we will be very grateful for your help.

 

Comment 32: General remark: I was wondering if the undertaken study encountered any limitations and if authors have in mind ideas for further research.

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we apologize that we do not provide enough information on the limitations of this paper and the further research. We have added this part at Line 649-654.

 

“Moreover, while this study has estimated the heterogeneous demand of urban residents for urban parks, the study area is only limited to metropolises like Beijing, and the results are not applicable to general cities. Therefore, more evidence from different regions needs to be provided to determine the preferences of home buyers and renters in different real estate markets. Meanwhile, this study only focuses on the market demand of urban parks and ignores social problems such as unbalanced green space. We hope that we will be able to tackle this challenge in a future study.”

 

In conclusion, following your valuable suggestions and comments, we have tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. In order to facilitate your further review and confirmation, we have marked by "Track Changes" in the revised manuscript.

 

Overall, we appreciate for your enthusiastic, patient and meticulous review, and hope that our modification work can meet your requirements. Once again, thank you very much for each of your comments and suggestions.

 

Best wishes.

Respectfully yours,

List of authors: Zhang Tianzheng, Zeng Yingxiang, Zhang Yingjie, Song Yan, Li Hongxun

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The need for urban parks is undoubtedly a significant factor in the decision-making process among both home-owners and renters. However, the precise scope of significance of the factor remains unclear. Bearing this in mind, I would like to emphasize that the paper fills the research gap and may be of interest to many actors involved in housing market research.

Besides, the paper is well-written and well-structured. The method applied is appropriate to fulfill the overall aims of the study.

What could be improved however, is interpreting the results of the study in the context of research findings of other authors. Moreover, there are some minor language mistakes, e.g. line 197 "may reflects" (should be: "may reflect"), line 316 "differental" (should be: "different"), some sentences need to be revised, e.g. line 296 "The estimated coefficients of the coefficients of(...)" (can be replaced with "variables") etc. 

Author Response

Response to reviewer

 

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thanks very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We really appreciate all your valuable comments and suggestions. Therefore, we strictly implement all modifications following your advice. The following is a detailed revision and explanation of your comments.

 

Comment 1: Line 197 "may reflects" (should be: "may reflect").

Response:

Thank you for your careful review, we apologize for the grammatical error. We have revised this mistake at Line 240.

 

Comment 2: Line 316 "differental" (should be: "different").

Response:

Thank you for pointing this out, we are very sorry for our incorrect writing. We have revised this mistake at Line 389.

 

Some sentences need to be revised.

 

Comment 3: Line 296 "The estimated coefficients of the coefficients of(...)" (can be replaced with "variables")

Response:

Thank you for your careful review, we are very sorry for our negligence. We have revised this mistake at Line 360.

 

In conclusion, following your valuable suggestions and comments, we have tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. In order to facilitate your further review and confirmation, we have marked by "Track Changes" in the revised manuscript.

 

Overall, we appreciate for your enthusiastic, patient and meticulous review, and hope that our modification work can meet your requirements. Once again, thank you very much for each of your comments and suggestions

 

Best wishes.

Respectfully yours,

List of authors: Zhang Tianzheng, Zeng Yingxiang, Zhang Yingjie, Song Yan, Li Hongxun

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf