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This special issue of LAND, an open access journal, centers around the ongoing transformation of cities and planning in response to the concurrent digital and green transition. The digital (or smart) transition is a major driver of the current transformation of cities and refers to the application of smart systems, sensor networks, IoT, cloud computing, big data, and AI that change all urban ecosystems. The green transition is another important driver of urban transformation with a systemic impact. Guided by objectives of sustainability, circularity, clean energy, and actions to mitigate climate change, it broadens the horizon of urban transformation due to its transversal character across ecosystems, science disciplines, and spatial scales.
The combined digital and green transition is shaping 21st-century cities and encompasses all urban ecosystems in the domains of manufacturing, energy, utilities, transport, services, and housing, though the conditions, technologies, science, and models of transformation are specific to each ecosystem and change from one to the other.
The aim of the Special Issue is to look into these processes and search for new patterns of city organisation, transformation pathways and new planning models, which deviate from 20th-century cities and planning. Following a “system-of-systems’ perspective of cities, we invite original research articles, review articles as well as short communications that discuss new organisation and planning models for any city ecosystem.
Publications in the Special Issue are expected to give an overview of the most recent advances in the field of cities and planning, to identify emerging city patterns and models that allow mastering the transformation of cities under the twin digital and green transition, as an opportunity for radical change of city ecosystems, innovation leapfrogging, and system innovation. Deadline for paper submissions is 25 September 2023.
The Special Issue