Low-Carbon Urban Planning: Sustainable Strategies and Smart Cities

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Architectural Design, Urban Science, and Real Estate".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 460

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China
Interests: low-carbon spatial planning; low-carbon behavior and facilities
School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China
Interests: low-carbon spatial planning; low-carbon behavior and facilities
School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Interests: coupling and coordination of regional population; land; economy; carbon emissions
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cities are major contributors to carbon emissions, accounting for over 75% of global emissions. Digital technologies can assist in urban planning decisions. The establishment of a systematic low-carbon urban planning framework that integrates sustainable strategies with data-driven technologies is urgently needed. Achieving carbon neutrality goals requires transformative approaches in urban design, infrastructure, and governance models.

This Special Issue focuses on the key intersection between low-carbon development goals and data-driven intelligent solutions, exploring how smart low-carbon urban planning can optimize resource efficiency, enhance resilience, and accelerate the process of urban decarbonization. It aims to present cutting-edge research results on multi-scale low-carbon planning methods, digital low-carbon urban management, and sustainable transformation policy mechanisms, covering theoretical modeling, empirical cases, technical demonstrations, and interdisciplinary analysis.

We welcome papers on, but not limited to, the following and related topics:

  1. Calculation systems for smart carbon emissions for cities, urban areas, neighborhoods, and other scales;
  2. Data-driven intelligent planning for low-carbon cities;
  3. Planning for low-carbon public service facilities and infrastructure;
  4. Low-carbon transportation planning;
  5. Low-carbon planning technology;
  6. Smart city planning platforms;
  7. Resilient urban planning;
  8. CCUS and smart cities;
  9. Low-carbon management policy.

Prof. Dr. He Zhang
Dr. Rui Wang
Dr. Lie You
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • low-carbon city
  • data-driven
  • carbon neutrality
  • carbon emission
  • low-carbon technology
  • policy management

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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