Polycentric Urban System, Territorial Development and Resilience of the Rural Population (Extremadura, Spain)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting paper, whose analysis has been throroughly carried out, with good graphic material.

However, it needs a number of improvements for the acceptance:

1) The Introduction is the problematic section of this paper.

- Please, state all the subjects in the text in the cases such as "As [1] (p. 13) indicate", "The [7]" and "The [8]", etc., because the present form of the text is difficult to read

- As the title of the paper is "Polycentric urban system, territorial development and resilience of the rural population", the paper lacks a theoretical reflection on these assumptions. Please, provide so by using the following references:

- for polycentric urban system, see https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/CyTET/article/view/76202

- for resilience, see https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/cig/article/view/5638;

- for territorial development (also based on the implementation of the Spanish Urban Agenda), see https://documentacionsocial.es/15/ciencia-social/la-evolucion-de-los-efectos-territorio-en-espana-segregacion-residencial-brechas-regionales-y-relacion-campo-ciudad/?print=pdf and https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/CyTET/article/view/98363

 

2) Discussion and Conclusion should be two different sections. The Discussion should provide a reflection on the results of the inquiry and the Conclusion should state the lessons learned from the analysis that has been carried out, its limitation and the future research path.

 

This is why I require a new version of the paper before its acceptance.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

1. The introduction of this article appears to list some literature, but lacks sufficient summarization of current research;

2. The correspondence between the two assumptions and the objectives in the introduction;

3. Suggest providing subheadings and supplementing the research framework diagram in Part 2 Materials and Methods;

4. The method introduction and variable description in the result analysis are suggested to be placed in Part 2; I think the analysis section is a bit lengthy.

5. The discussion and conclusion of this article are combined together, with multiple paragraphs and unclear structure, making it difficult for readers to understand. Suggest using two subheadings to separate the conclusion from the discussion, and it is suggested that the conclusion should not contain any figures or tables.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I like the paper. I find it quite interesting. The empirical work is undertaken and presented with clarity and care (although see specific comments for some recommendations). In any case, there are two main points I would like to highlight. On the one hand, I would like the authors to engage more fully with up-to-date literature on 'the definition of rural areas', and that this issue is clearly separate from any contextual introduction to the circumstances of rural Spain and the Extremadura study region. On the other hand, but related to the previous comment, my second ‘issue’ relates to the contribution that the paper makes to the literature. The study is effectively an empirical case study applied to a region of Spain. From this insights flow into the particular case of this region and policy recommendations follow. In my opinion, for the international readership of this journal, the current version of the article does not do enough to bring out what the readership should take from the study for the broader literature on the issue. Is the methodology novel? (I don’t believe it is) Are the new findings that can be applied to other rural regions? For example, what policy lessons are available? At the moment, the article reads primarily as an applied case study – or policy document – that provides an interesting overview of different elements of rural resilience in a region of Spain. But this could be undertaken for any region – in any other country – and the findings would be of interest only to readers in that region. For the article to be published in a leading international journal, I would like the authors to try to make a more convincing case of why this method and this application to one region yields an advance on our existing knowledge. Maybe a recent paper devoted to Cantabria about “Toward the identification of laggard rural areas: an evolutionary resilience approach” could give some ideas

 

Additional comments.

·       Line 37. “As [1]….”. Why? Reading the paper this way is a nightmare.

·       Line 83. The reader does not know what CEMAT stands for.

·       I would avoid including so many quotation marks in the introduction, and indeed throughout the paper. Use your own words, including references obviously.

·       I would cut out the part of the introduction devoted to "situating" the subject (4 pages!!!)

·       Taking advantage of this space, I would detail the contribution to the literature, include a brief literature review on the subject (hardly any previous papers are mentioned) and say something from a methodological point of view. I would finish with the structure of the paper.

·       You say you use 77 variables but, is this actually true?

·       Related to that, you remove most of the variables due to local peculiarities. To what extent does this make your analysis valid only for Extremadura?

·       With regard to the region of Extremadura, I think there are parts where the reader's knowledge is taken for granted. For example, when talking about Siberia, an area made up of 11 municipalities. Furthermore, I believe that urban municipalities are called cities, when they do not coincide, as is well known. I would like to see a little more neatness in these parts.

·       “Once this exploratory analysis had been carried out, the 19 variables with indices greater than ±0.500 were selected, to which a new multivariate analysis was applied”. Please elaborate a bit on it.

·       Table 2. Values in bold are factors in which each variable loads higher. This would help.

·       I would include, at a minimum, tests for sampling adequacy of PCA

·       “Población” is written in Table 3.

·       Table 3. More information about the way it is computed.

·       Finally, you say your proposal is feasible and affordable, with a viable investment. I would like you to elaborate on it.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has put considerable effort into this paper, and it is well-structured. However, I believe the quality of the paper can be further improved by addressing the following points:

1. Literature Review: The current literature review reads more like an introduction rather than a summary of existing research. I recommend reorganizing the literature review, with less emphasis on introductory content and more focus on synthesizing existing literature to identify gaps and formulate research questions.

2. Materials and Methods: Similar to the literature review, the materials and methods section needs more clarity. The author should clearly list the data and methods used, along with justifications for their selection. Additionally, the paper should include a detailed description of the study area.

3. Results: The results section is overly complex. I suggest the author streamline this section to more directly address the research questions and present the findings in a clearer and more concise manner.

4. Conclusion and Discussion: These sections should be separated. The discussion should focus on what the author has done, how the findings compare to other studies, and why similarities or differences may exist. This section should provide a thorough analysis of the results in the context of existing literature.

5. Conclusion: The conclusion should be concise, providing a clear and comprehensive synthesis of the research findings.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper can be accepted in the current form.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has revised the introduction, research method, result analysis, discussion and conclusion to improve the quality of the paper. This paper is still too long. This article is recommended.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper has improved

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you very much for the modification made by the author. I think the paper can be published in this state