New Towns – Past, Present, and Future
A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 February 2026
Special Issue Editors
Interests: urban and rural design; new cities and neighborhoods planned by the state; ideology in planning; brutalist architecture; heritage preservation; urban regeneration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The phenomenon of new towns was an inherent part of the post-World War II construction efforts in Europe. These developments served multiple purposes: they provided a planned response to the housing crisis caused by wartime destruction; enabled control over population distribution; promoted a modern way of life for residents; and allowed young couples to purchase homes and improve their economic status. The planning of these new towns was influenced by modernist urban design principles, as defined by the Athens Charter and CIAM.
Over time, however, lessons were learned and attempts were made to revise the first and later the second generation of new town models. It became increasingly clear that a complex organism such as a city cannot be fully controlled. As a result, Europe no longer promotes rigid physical models for “ideal” new towns. Instead, attention shifted to theories characterizing "good" cities by emphasizing specific guiding themes—such as the Smart City or the Eco-City.
In contrast, new towns are currently being built in East Asia and the Middle East. At a glance, it appears that many of these adopt the modernist urban planning approach—one that had already been largely rejected in Europe by the 1970s.
The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to give insights about the phenomenon of new towns—past and present—their physical planning, intended purposes, and the ways these aspects have evolved over time in relation to culture and society.
This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts that link the following themes:
- Existing physical models of new towns;
• The ideology behind new towns;
• Key theories in new town planning;
• The purpose of new towns in the past and present;
• The influence of society and culture on new town models, their governance, and the way residents use them;
• The process of drawing lessons from the experience of new towns;
• Evaluating new towns: then and now.
We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.
Dr. Hadas Shadar
Prof. Dr. Arnon Golan
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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
- New towns
- urban theories
- urban models
- urban modernization
- population concentration
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