This thematic issue aims to provide insight on the current and future role of spatial computing technologies in representing urban data, and to understand the opportunities and barriers of bridging physical and digital environments.

Contributions will cover practical and envisioned uses of spatial computing technologies to:

-         Improve city stakeholders' understanding and participation in urban design projects and data visualization in urban settings.

-         Explore scenarios and visions of utopian and dystopian futures of the cityscape.

-         Support climate adaptations practices in response to climate disruptions.

-         Access the palimpsest of multisensory memories in urban places.

Urban studies have predominantly relied on visual representation to plan, design, and communicate features of the built environment. Maps, renderings, interactive digital models, and synthetic immersive experiences have been explored using different techniques to test scenarios, monitor the performance of urban forms, and enable conversation among city stakeholders.

The advances and democratization in spatial computing technologies are set to further transform how planners model, visualize, and engage with cities. Like the gaming approaches explored in urban planning (Hudson-Smith & Shakeri, 2022), where gaming frameworks allowed planners and citizens to “play” with urban scenarios, spatial computing technologies enhance this capability by offering multi-sensory, layered, and contextualised interactive environments, promoting citizen participation and enriching the urban design processes.

Spatial computing emphasizes the role of space-as-a-medium. Through augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) approaches, it enables the blending of digital and physical features, leading to innovative forms of designing, analysing, and representing the cityscape. Solutions introduced by companies like Meta, Apple, Niantic, and OpenAI, along with reality capture methods, demonstrate the ability to enable novel data-driven urban visualizations and simulations. They offer deeper understanding of scale, context, and the potential impact of urban interventions, allowing walkthroughs of cityscapes before they are constructed, promoting accessibility, playful experimentation, and co-creation activities (Batty & Hudson-Smith, 2001; Lovett et al., 2024).

Spatial computing not only enhances the level of immersion through enhanced visual fidelity and real-time data visualization, but extends further by providing layers of accessible urban knowledge using digital twins, portals and situated visualisations where urban spaces turn into canvases for digital habitation, blending with the physical experience of the city.

References:

Batty, M., & Hudson-Smith, A. (2001). Virtuality and cities: Definitions, geographies, designs. In P. F. Fisher & D. Unwin (Eds.), Virtual reality in geography (pp. 270–291). Taylor & Francis.

Hudson-Smith, A., & Shakeri, M. (2022). The future’s not what it used to be: Urban wormholes, simulation, participation, and planning in the metaverse. Urban Planning, 7(2), 214–217. https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v7i2.5893

Lovett, L., Signorelli, V., & Hudson-Smith, A. (2024). Exploring the materiality of augmented reality markers through arts-led cocreation: Drawing, weaving, and tiling. Leonardo, 57(4), 379–386. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02542

Recent developments in AI technologies have exacerbated existing concerns about the (un)sustainability of digitalisation and datafication. These concerns are related to the limitations of resources both natural and infrastructure-wise (Dekeyser & Lynch, 2025), to the exhaustion of the latter provoked by the excessive AI-use (Wang & Yorke-Smith, 2025), digital archiving, and mundane data consumption (Vale et al., 2024). This is related to the glut of digital footprints and waste in cities, which has been a problem for both cities and the media for centuries, albeit supercharged in the contemporary moment. What is new is the excessive use and normalisation of an (un)sustainable relationship with digital technology, including the everyday use of tools such as Chat GPT (Hogan, 2024). These tools have severe carbon footprint impacts, using as much water as an average family uses in almost two years for server cooling and electricity generation. For every hundred words generated by the service, an average of three bottles of water are consumed (DeGeurin, 2023).

The smart city and the new digital twins’ tropes—along with prescriptive and acritical perspectives that technologies will be the panacea for any complex issue—are part of the problem (Chiappini, 2020). Discourses around the effectiveness of these types of initiatives and projects often create, semantically and semiotically (Babushkina & Votsis, 2022), a distorted view of digital solutions for fictitious issues, including distortions of key human traits such as knowledge, meaning, and embeddedness into reality. On a smaller scale, the everyday life consumption on search engines, direct messaging, social media addiction, multimedia file exchange, and purchases on big tech logistic platforms pollute not only the environment but the collective consciousness, producing confusion, exhaustion, and fatigue. This constant generation of an amount of information that pollutes the brain becomes what Lovink (2019) defined as “brain-junk.” The number of apps keeps increasing, and so does the data they collect, but users are not always aware and digitally literate about these risks. Hence, both co-dependency on media technologies and a lack of a high degree of digital literacy can be considered societal and spatial issues that might create unevenness. It is unfortunately not possible to control-click emptying the trash from digital waste and material pollution: much of it goes beyond the current understanding and technical capability to take care of. Therefore, there is an urge to overcome the rapid accelerationism of techno-determinism and solutionism and identify tactics and strategies aimed at reducing digital waste.

This thematic issue is concerned with the timely and vital problem of digitalisation and its (un)sustainability, fostering a discussion on the waste and pollution, digital and material, caused by massive datafication and urban platformisation (Cristofari, 2023). The relationship between the geographical scale, socio-political goals, and the technological design of digital infrastructures is of crucial importance to the understanding of the issue of digital waste and its possible reduction (Chiappini & Ferrari, 2024). For instance, data centres account for about two percent of all global energy use, and the raw amount of energy consumed by data centres doubles roughly every four to eight years (International Energy Agency, 2022). Hence, in terms of urban planning, the localisation of data centres has key implications, with direct consequences over the surrounding environment with regard to air pollution and climate change. The thematic issue encompasses inter- and trans-disciplinary perspectives from urban studies and planning, including digital geography, sociology, semiotics, environmental studies, and legal approaches. It aims to engage critically with the normative and prescriptive discourses which favour a techno-determinist view where smart city projects are celebrated. We invite papers that deal with concepts such as waste, noise, and excess in terms of data, materials, time, labour, cultural surplus, chatbots, and AI-powered services, also, but not exclusively, in relation to the uselessness and ineffectiveness of smart city projects and digital twins’ experiments.

References:

-         Babushkina, D., & Votsis, A. (2022). Epistemo-ethical constraints on AI-human decision making for diagnostic purposes. Ethics and Information Technology, 24(2), Article 22.

-         Chiappini, L. (2020). The urban digital platform. Instance from Milan and Amsterdam. Urban Planning, 5(4), 277–288. https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v5i4.3417

-         Chiappini, L., & Ferrari, V. (2024). Digital geographies of power: The scale of digital money infrastructures. First Monday, 29(10). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i10.13786

-         Cristofari, G. (2023). The politics of platformization: Amsterdam dialogues on platform theory. Institute of Network Cultures. https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/the-politics-of-platformization-amsterdam-dialogues-on-platform-thoery

-         DeGeurin, M. (2023). 'Thirsty' AI: Training ChatGPT required enough water to fill a nuclear reactor's cooling tower, study finds. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-ai-water-185000-gallons-training-nuclear-1850324249

-         Dekeyser, T., & Lynch, C. R. (2025). Control and resistance in automated shops: Retail transparency, deep learning, and digital refusal. Antipode, 57, 53–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.13093

-         Hogan, M. (2024). AI is a hot mess. Training the Archive, 33–54.

-         International Energy Agency. (2022). World Energy Outlook 2022. https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2022

-         Lovink, G. (2019). Sad by design. Pluto Press.

-         Vale, M., Ferreira, D., & Rodrigues, N. (Eds.). (2024). Geographies of the platform economy. Springer.

-         Wang, T., & Yorke-Smith, N. (Eds.). (2025). AI for and in Urban Planning [Thematic issue]. Urban Planning, 10. https://doi.org/10.17645/up.i388

The impact of climate change is one of the key challenges cities are confronting around the world (Chantillon et al., 2021). Consequently, cities have been taking the lead in developing adaptation and resilience strategies (Mehryar et al., 2022). However, such adaptation requires innovative approaches and an understanding of the governance context where they take place (Casiano Flores et al., 2020, 2021). Within these circumstances, co-creation practices have gained significant attention as effective governance strategies for harnessing local expertise and insights to develop innovative solutions (Torfing et al., 2019). Co-creation refers to the collaborative process between public and private actors in solving a shared public problem or task. This involves exchanging various resources to co-initiate, co-design, and/or co-implement visions, strategies, policies, regulatory frameworks, or technological solutions (Hofstad et al., 2022).

This thematic issue aims to explore the intersection of co-creation practices and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, virtual reality/augmented reality, and the Internet of Things, in addressing climate change adaptation in urban planning and management. Despite the growing interest in co-creation research, its integration with emerging technologies remains underdeveloped (Rodriguez Müller et al., 2021; Tan & Rodriguez Müller, 2023), limiting our understanding of its challenges and benefits for climate change adaptation in cities. This thematic issue seeks to fill this gap by shedding light on the interplay between emerging technologies and co-creation processes and providing insights into effective approaches, good practices, and cautionary experiences that can facilitate effective climate change responses in cities.

To contribute to this thematic issue, we invite empirical studies that focus on co-creation with emerging technologies to develop and implement strategies, policies, services, and infrastructure aimed at addressing climate challenges in cities. Potential research topics for this thematic issue include, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• How can emerging technologies support co-creation to achieve climate neutrality of (smart) cities by 2050?
• What are the challenges that co-creation with digital technologies for climate change adaptation can face and how can they be overcome?
• What are the ethical considerations and implications of co-creation processes with emerging technologies in urban climate governance?
• How can emerging technologies enhance the monitoring, evaluation, and feedback mechanisms of co-creation initiatives for climate change adaptation in cities?
• What are the potential synergies and trade-offs between digital co-creation and existing governance structures for climate change adaptation in cities?
• What are the barriers and enablers for successful implementation of co-creation initiatives with emerging technologies in urban climate change adaptation?
• To what extent do co-creation processes with emerging technologies lead to the adoption and implementation of sustainable policies and practices for climate change adaptation in cities?
• How can hybrid co-creation approaches, combining online and offline tools and methodologies, effectively leverage emerging technologies to address climate challenges in cities?

References:

Casiano Flores, C., Tan, E., Buntinx, I., Crompvoets, J., Stöcker, C., & Zevenbergen, J. (2020). Governance assessment of the UAVs implementation in Rwanda under the fit-for-purpose land administration approach. Land Use Policy, 99, Article 104725. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104725

Casiano Flores, C., Tan, E., & Crompvoets, J. (2021). Governance assessment of UAV implementation in Kenyan land administration system. Technology in Society, 66, Article 101664. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101664

Chantillon, M., Casiano Flores, C., Crompvoets, J., Sallano, M., Eiras Antunes, M., Garcia Barron, M., Barroca, J., Vicente, P., Vaz Raposo, A., & Sidique, G. (2021). Proposal for a European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities (EIF4SCC). Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2799/816559

Hofstad, H., Sørensen, E., Torfing, J., & Vedeld, T. (2022). Designing and leading collaborative urban climate governance: Comparative experiences of co‐creation from Copenhagen and Oslo. Environmental Policy and Governance, 32(3), 203–216. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.1984

Mehryar, S., Sasson, I., & Surminski, S. (2022). Supporting urban adaptation to climate change: What role can resilience measurement tools play? Urban Climate, 41, Article 101047. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101047

Rodriguez Müller, A. P., Casiano Flores, C., Albrecht, V., Steen, T., & Crompvoets, J. (2021). A scoping review of empirical evidence on (digital) public services co-creation. Administrative Sciences, 11(4), Article 130. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci11040130

Tan, E., & Rodriguez Müller, A. P. (2023). Paths to citizens-controlled coproduction: The use of blockchain technology in digital coproduction. Public Management Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2023.2218388

Torfing, J., Sørensen, E., & Røiseland, A. (2019). Transforming the public sector into an arena for co-creation: Barriers, drivers, benefits, and ways forward. Administration & Society, 51(5), 795–825. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399716680057

The contribution of urban settlements to global warming is estimated at 70% of global CO²-eq emissions (IPCC AR6 WGIII, 2023, p. 877). The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) considers that established cities “will achieve the largest GHG emissions savings by replacing, repurposing, or retrofitting the building stock, targeted infilling and densifying, as well as through modal shift and the electrification of the urban energy system” (IPCC AR6 WGIII, 2023, p. 864). In the absence of significant reuse of vacant buildings or accounting for whole life carbon in construction and retrofits, national projections in countries like Ireland will overshoot targets for the built environment sector (O’Hegarty et al., 2022).

In older, established, urban settlements in Europe and elsewhere, much of the existing building stock is recognised in conventions and legislation for its architectural quality and heritage value. Increasingly, the commonality of purpose between conservation and the circular economy has been recognized in relation to retaining heritage assets in use without losing what is understood as their integrity or character (Huuhka & Vestergaard, 2019; Wise et al., 2021). Less accounted for is the contribution of heritage buildings to climate mitigation through adaptive reuse (Baker et al., 2021), thereby retaining their embodied emissions and averting new construction where possible, at least in the medium term. The lowered global warming potential of adaptive reuse of older structures is understudied in relation to demonstrated retrofit programmes that are cost effective and sensitive to heritage structures and their fabrics.

In this call for papers for Urban Planning, we seek abstracts (300–400 words) that analyse the convergences between retrofitting heritage buildings, the circular economy, urban revitalisation, sustainable communities, and sense of place. Example topics include revitalisation of town and city centre buildings and their plots, cost comparison of retrofit options versus further abandonment or demolition, life cycle analysis, calculation of embodied emissions, community-led transformations, and redesign of urban cores that retain heritage assets.

References:

Baker, H., Moncaster, A., Remøy, H., & Wilkinson, S. (2021). Retention not demolition: How heritage thinking can inform carbon reduction. Journal of Architectural Conservation, 27(3), 176–194.

Huuhka, S., & Vestergaard, I. (2019). Building conservation and the circular economy: A theoretical consideration. Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, 10(1), 29–40.

IPCC AR6 WGIII. (2023). Urban systems and other settlements. In IPCC (Ed.), Climate change 2022: Mitigation of climate change (pp. 861–952, 1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781009157926%23c8/type/book_part

O’Hegarty, R., Wall, S., & Kinnane, O. (2022). Whole life carbon in construction and in the built environment in Ireland: Today, 2030, 2050. IGBC. https://www.igbc.ie/resources/whole-life-carbon-in-construction-and-in-the-built-environment-in-ireland-v4

Wise, F., Moncaster, A., & Jones, D. (2021). Rethinking retrofit of residential heritage buildings. Buildings and Cities, 2(1), 495–517.

The rise of the dynamic field known as Geogames has been due to the response of the urban planning domain, supported by digital technologies advances and participatory demands, to pressing contemporary urban issues. Nonetheless, since the 1970s, serious games have been applied as a multiple dialogue communication and training platform, as well as a consensus reaching simulation tool over urban (re)development impacts (Abt, 1970; Duke, 1974; Sanoff, 1979; Summers, 1979). Geogames are a fusion of geospatial technologies, serious gaming mechanics, and playful public participation, providing architects and urban planners with powerful tools to engage a range of stakeholders, simulate scenarios, and up-scale decision-making environments (Ahlqvist & Schlieder, 2018; Andrade et al., 2020; Poplin et al., 2017, 2020). This thematic issue seeks to delve into transgressing the boundaries of the urban and regional planning discipline, integrating concepts, epistemologies, and methodologies from game studies, urban and cultural geography, cognitive and environmental psychology, and others.

The factors affecting urban and regional planning today may have multifaceted causes in historic, social, economic, political, and environmental (Levy, 2017) realms, including overlooked decision-making factors such as power and interest relations, and conflicts and coalitions related to stakeholders’ attitudes and behaviours (Mayer et al., 2005). This thematic issue aims at assembling cutting-edge research, teaching, and practice insights into the ways geogames are being employed to tackle some of the most pressing issues in urban (re)development including, but not limited to, urban degradation and (re)urbanization; built heritage conservation and sustainability; affordable housing and diverse particular housing needs; public transportation, active mobility, and nature-based solutions for healthy and happy cities; circularity and energy efficiency; and the critical issues of adaptation planning towards climate change impacts.

Original contributions such as theoretical frameworks, empirical studies, and case study analyses are invited, especially the ones navigating the design, development, and implementation of geogames, as well as the impact and effectiveness of geogames facing the challenges of digitalization and complex decision environments. Topics should include the integration of geospatial data in gaming environments, such as participatory urban design simulations; multi-stakeholder values and role-playing engagement; virtual, augmented, and mixed reality applications for urban exploration and visualization; ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) in games; and the metaverse in smart cities management. Non-digital games applications, such as board, tabletop, and card games, which reflect upon twinning to a digital format, are also welcomed.

References:

Abt, C. C. (1970). Serious games. Viking Press.

Ahlqvist, O., & Schlieder, C. (2018). Introducing geogames and geoplay: Characterizing an emerging research field. In O. Ahlqvist & C. Schlieder (Eds.), Geogames and geoplay: Game-based approaches to the analysis of geo-information (pp. 1–18). Springer.

Andrade, B., Poplin, A., & de Sena, Í. S. (2020). Minecraft as a tool for engaging children in urban planning: A case study in Tirol Town, Brazil. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 9(3), Article 170.

Duke, R. D. (1974). Gaming: The future's language. Sage Publications.

Levy, J. M. (2017). Contemporary urban planning. Taylor & Francis.

Mayer, I. S., van Bueren, E. M., Bots, P. W. G., van der Voort, H., & Seijdel, R. (2005). Collaborative decision-making for sustainable urban renewal projects: A simulation – Gaming approach. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 32(3), 403–423.

Poplin, A., Andrade, B., & de Sena, Í. S. (2020). Geogames for change: Cocreating the future of cities with games. In D. Leorke & M. Owens (Eds.), Games and play in the creative, smart and ecological city (pp. 64–93). Routledge.

Poplin, A., Kerkhove, T., Reasoner, M., Roy, A., & Brown, N. (2017). Serious geogames for civic engagement in urban planning: Discussion based on four game prototypes. In C. Yamu, A. Poplin, O. Devisch, & G. De Roo (Eds.), The virtual and the real in planning and urban design (pp. 189–213). Routledge.

Sanoff, H. (1979). Design games. William Kaufmann.

Summers, L. H. (1979). Operational games in architecture and design. JAE, 33(1), 2–7.

Population decline continues to affect many cities across Europe, particularly small and medium-sized ones (Escudero-Gómez et al., 2023; Haase, 2018; Le Borgne, 2024; Szymczyk & Bukowski, 2023). On a global scale, urban shrinkage is of growing relevance in Asia, particularly in China (Lee et al., 2023). When addressed in the scientific literature, these shrinking cities are commonly portrayed as left-behind, lagging, or peripheralized places, somewhat disconnected from major economic, socio-cultural, and political centers (Gajewski & Knippschild, 2024; Kühn, 2015; Pike et al., 2023).

This thematic issue invites for a paradigm shift: Acknowledging that a stigmatization of shrinking cities can result in the reproduction of negative development dynamics, the issue encourages contributions that view shrinking cities as spaces of possibilities, with particular capacities for socio-spatial innovations (Görmar & Lang, 2019) and for urban sustainability transitions. It is important to note that preconditions for urban transitions in shrinking cities differ from those in growing ones. The particular nexus between society and space that emerges under the conditions of decreased population size and density is one example. While vacancies and urban voids are typically regarded as burdens for the cities’ development, they also bear potentials as spaces of possibilities for local action and for strategic development (de Solà-Morales, 1995; Groth & Corjin, 2005). The recognition of such particular potentials by both local actors and superordinate institutions is vital for the development of shrinking cities.

Against this background, contributions to this issue should explore both potentials for and limitations of urban transitions in shrinking cities. We are especially interested in the interplay between the social realm and the spatial materialities. Possible themes include but are not limited to the following:

• Which local structures and/or superordinate institutional conditions foster or hinder urban transition processes in shrinking cities?
• What scope of action do local actors and authorities have in this context?
• What role does the physical urban space play within the transformative potential of shrinking cities?

We welcome submissions that explore these themes through both theoretical analysis and empirical research.

Literature:

de Solà-Morales, I. (1995). Terrain vague. In C. C. Davidson (Eds.), Anyplace (pp. 118–123). MIT Press.

Escudero-Gómez, L. A., García-González, J. A., & Martínez-Navarro, J. M. (2023). What is happening in shrinking medium-sized cities? A correlational analysis and a multiple linear regression model on the case of Spain. Cities, 134, Article 104205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2023.104205

Gajewski, R., & Knippschild, R. (2024). Local policy-making within the multilevel system: A study of governance in peripheral (ised) medium-sized cities undergoing socio-economic transformation in Saxony, Germany and Lower Silesia, Poland. Urban Studies, 61(10), 1891–1914. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980231221085

Görmar, F., & Lang, T. (2019). Acting peripheries: An introduction. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 18(2), 486–495. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v18i2.1869

Groth, J., & Corijn, E. (2005). Reclaiming urbanity: Indeterminate spaces, informal actors and urban agenda setting. Urban Studies, 42(3), 503–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980500035436

Haase, A. (2018). Schrumpfende Stadt. In D. Rink & A. Haase (Eds.), Handbuch Stadtkonzepte. Analysen, Diagnosen, Kritiken und Visionen (pp. 405–428). Budrich.

Kühn, M. (2015). Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities. European Planning Studies, 23(2), 367–378. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.862518

Le Borgne, S. (2024). Coping with urban shrinkage: The role of informal social capital in French medium-sized shrinking cities. European Planning Studies, 32(3), 569–585. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2023.2221293

Lee, J. E., Park, Y., & Newman, G. D. (2023). Twenty years of research on shrinking cities: A focus on keywords and authors. Landscape Research, 48(7), 884–899. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2023.2201492

Pike, A., Béal, V., Cauchi-Duval, N., Franklin, R., Kinossian, N., Lang, T., Leibert, T., MacKinnon, D., Rousseau, M., Royer, J., Servillo, L., Tomaney, J., & Velthuis, S. (2023). “Left behind places”: A geographical etymology. Regional Studies, 58(6), 1167–1179. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2023.2167972

Szymczyk, E., & Bukowski, M. (2023). Identification of shrinking cities in Poland using a multi-criterion indicator. Przegląd Geograficzny, 95(4), 447–473. https://doi.org/10.7163/PrzG.2023.4.5