Abstract:  Various economic activities (urban agriculture, industries, services) are conceivable in the productive city. This thematic issue attempts to highlight especially urban production/manufacturing as tangible manifestations embedded in their local settings because they are conflict‐ridden, emanate distinctive spatial characteristics, and require complex planning processes. Therefore, we called for empirical case studies of such locally embedded economies with the productive city. As the contributions in this thematic issue emphasize, these activities can relate to high‐tech (e.g., platforms) but also to low‐tech (garment) and high‐touch industries (e.g., crafts, fashion). However, they all rely on the embeddedness of local economies in urban spaces as an enabling environment in the productive city. To fully realize these local embeddings, the productive city calls for alternative understandings of production, investment, and legal/planning frameworks entangled in zoning overlays or (informal) mixed‐use developments, orchestrated by means of digital technologies in a sustainable way (by circular economies, through environmental benefits). Simultaneously, the current (largely anecdotal) corpus of conceptual and qualitative case studies leaves unresolved the question whether the proposed ideas, visions, and guidelines for locally productive urban quarters are in fact achievable or merely reflect the wishful thinking of political agendas. More studies and improved methodological approaches are needed to operationalize the local significance and multipliers in order to objectively and statistically capture the genuine impacts of these sectors.

Keywords:  industrial and commercial planning; local economies; mixed‐use development; productive city; urban and architectural design; urban crafts; urban production

Published:   23 December 2025

Issue:   Vol 10 (2025): Planning for Locally Embedded Economies in the Productive City