PONE-D-25-22012Choosing Between City and Suburb: How Urbanization Shapes Graduates' Housing PreferencesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Li,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Tianheng Shu, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

The manuscript has been thoroughly reviewed by three reviewers, who have highlighted the need for specific clarifications to improve its quality. I encourage you to carefully review the detailed feedback provided in the review reports and address each comment comprehensively to enhance the overall quality of your manuscript.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: 1. Some critical issues have been emphasized; however, some strong research gaps should be clarified

2. Statistics should be combined and made shorter

3. This study has reviewed several studies; however, some of the latest related studies should be added

Reviewer #2: This paper employs structural equation modeling to explore the factors influencing graduates' housing choices. While the introduction and literature review sections are relatively well-written, the data, methods, and findings sections require major revisions.

• [Survey Design Clarity] The paper lacks a clear explanation of the survey design. What is the target population? Are the participants college graduates from a single city, a province, or the entire country? If the target population comprises graduates from a single city, the authors should provide relevant socioeconomic background information about the city (e.g., population size, urbanization trends, socioeconomic indicators, major industries) to place the results in context more effectively.

• [Definition of College Graduates] How are "college graduates" defined in this study? Are they individuals who graduated within the past year? How many different colleges were the survey participants drawn from?

• [Inclusion of Hukou Status] The hukou status of college graduates is a crucial structural factor affecting their housing choices, but the paper does not address this. Depending on the study site, whether recent graduates have a local urban hukou can influence their access to social services, housing purchase options, and other life aspects that are directly or indirectly connected to housing choices and life satisfaction. If the authors do not have this piece of information, this should be mentioned as a limitation in the discussion section.

• [Questionnaire Items] It would be beneficial to include the sources of the questionnaire items and the exact wording of the survey questions (e.g., how is housing choice measured?). This information could be provided in the supplemental materials.

• [Result Interpretation] The results section needs more detailed and clear explanations. For instance, what do the authors mean by "housing choice"? Does it pertain to housing location (urban/suburban), housing type (apartments, townhouses, dormitories), or affordability level (percentage of income spent on housing)? Because the paper does not clearly operationalize concepts and explain the data collection process, the interpretation of results remains vague and lacks substantial meaning. Consequently, the findings are less useful for providing a deeper understanding of the topic or guiding policy decision-making.

Reviewer #3: 1.Please reduce the number of keywords to 3-6 to align with journal guidelines and improve discoverability, retaining only those most central to your study.

2.While the manuscript presents an interesting approach to studying housing choice through satisfaction mediation, the theoretical justification for selecting satisfaction as the mediating variable requires stronger foundation. The authors should more thoroughly ground this choice in established theories like Expectation Confirmation Theory or Cognitive-Affective Theory, while also addressing why satisfaction is more appropriate than alternative psychological mechanisms. Regarding the independent variables, the current selection appears somewhat limited and would benefit from a clearer explanation of the inclusion criteria, particularly why other potentially relevant factors were excluded. The claim of constructing a multidimensional theoretical framework isn't fully substantiated in the current analysis - while statistical relationships are demonstrated, the integration of economic, social and psychological dimensions needs deeper theoretical articulation. The authors should either strengthen this theoretical integration by incorporating interdisciplinary perspectives or more explicitly acknowledge the current limitations of their framework.

3.The theoretical model appears to be merely a synthesis of existing literature without demonstrating original theoretical derivation or empirical validation. The authors must explicitly clarify the model's construction logic - whether derived deductively from established theories or inductively through empirical evidence - to establish its scholarly contribution.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Choosing Between City and Suburb: How Urbanization Shapes Graduates' Housing Preferences

PONE-D-25-22012R1

Dear Dr. Li,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Tianheng Shu, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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