## 3 Results and Discussion
### Sustainable Sites and Location and Transportation
Therefore, the residents of Shanghai have restrictions on private car ownership, while public transportation is highly developed in this megacity [30]. In addition, LTc4 (Bicycle Facilities) continued the tendency of low and medium performance in the Silver and Gold projects, respectively, in both the Chinese cities and the U.S. states that were previously noted for the SS category. It should be remembered that, in the U.S., most of the studied projects were located in California (Table 1). The building sector in California operates under strong local energy and environmental regulations. In particular, with regards to the low performing bicycle-related credits (SSC3.2 and LTc4, Tables 2 and 3, respectively), California's Code of Regulations (Title 24, Section 5.106.4 Bicycle parking [31]) also requires that a project should provide secure bicycle parking for 5 percent of the tenants, similar to the requirements presented in these credits. However, the Californian code prescribes any requirements to have showers (which is part of SSc3.2 and LTc4 credit requirements). This might be considered a difficulty in achievement of these credits. It is worth mentioning that the LT category suggests an additional approach to achieve this credit. To use an existing building development with LEED for Neighborhood Development certification for the location of the design project [12]. Nevertheless, this approach was not popular in either the Chinese or the U.S. projects, which both preferred the conventional approach of gaining several separate credits, such as Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses, Access to Quality Transit, Bicycle Facilities, and Reduced Parking Footprint (Table 3). As a result, in both SS (LEED-CIv3) and LT (LEED-CIv4), the Chinese Silver and Gold projects performed to a higher standard compared to the U.S. Silver and Gold projects. Moreover, in the Chinese projects, the difference between Silver and Gold SS performance (LEED-CIv3) was improved in LT [12], in which both the Silver and Gold projects had similar high performance. This is consistent with the results of [PERSON] [9], who confirmed that SS is an important category for China, and with the results presented by [PERSON] et al. [13], who evaluated LEED-NCv3 projects and reported that the SS category is implemented better in China that in the U.S. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Credit/Category**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Country/\(\mathbf{\xi_{1}}\)**} & **Possible** & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Achieved Points**} & \multirow{2}{*}{\(\mathbf{\xi_{2}/\text{In}\theta}\)} \\  & & **Points** & **Silver** & **Gold** & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{\
\begin{tabular}{c} LTc2 Surrounding Density \\ and Diverse Uses \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{3}{*}{China \(\mathbf{\xi_{1}}\)} & & 8.0 & 8.0 & 8.0 & 8.0 & 0.03 \\  & & & **1.00** & **0.97** & X \\  & & 8 & 8.0 & 5.0 & -8.0 & -0.08 \\  & & & **0.68** & **0.72** & X \\  & & & 7.0 & 7.0 & 7.0 & 7.0 & 0.03 \\ \multirow{3}{*}{
\begin{tabular}{c} LTc3 Access to Quality \\ Transit \\ \end{tabular} } & \multirow{3}{*}{China \(\mathbf{\xi_{1}}\)} & & 7 & **1.00** & **0.97** & X \\  & & & 6.0 & 0.0 & -7.0 & 0.6 & -0.27 \\  & & & **0.43** & **0.68** & X \\  & & & 0.0 & 0.0 & 0.0 & 0.0 & -0.99 \\  & & & 0.25 & **0.47** & X \\  & & & 0.0 & 0.0 & 0.0 & 0.0 & -1.0 \\  & & & 0.30 & **0.33** & X \\  & & & 2.0 & 2.0 & 2.0 & 2.0 & -2.0 \\  & & & **0.94** & **0.95** & X \\  & & & 0.0 & 0.0 & 0.0 & -2.0 \\  & & & **0.35** & **0.68** & X \\  & & & 17.0 & 17.0 & 17.0 & 17.0 & -18.0 \\  & & The U.S. & 18 & 14.0 & 7.0 & -16.3 & 17.0 & -0.32 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* Notes: The \(\delta\) effect size is considered to be (i) negligible if \(|\mathbf{s}|<0.147\), (ii) _small_ if \(0.147\leq|\mathbf{s}|<0.33\), (iii) _medium_ if \(0.33\leq|\mathbf{s}|<0.474\), and (iv) **large** if \(|\mathbf{s}|\geq 0.474\). \({}^{1}\) The \(|\ln\theta|\) effect size thresholds are considered to be \(0.51\) (_small_), \(1.24\) (_medium_), and \(1.90\) (**large**).  
\end{table}