Pathways of Urbanization: From Spatial Dynamics to Planning Futures
A special issue of Urban Science (ISSN 2413-8851). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Planning and Design".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 2
Special Issue Editors
2. iuFOR, Campus Universitario Duques de Soria, University of Valladolid, 42004 Soria, Spain
3. GEOFOREST, Department of Geography, University of Zaragoza, Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: geography; spatial analysis; spatial planning; land-use change; remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. Barcelona Laboratory for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability (ICTA-UAB), Barcelona, Spain
Interests: land-use change; landscape ecology; spatial planning; spatial segregation; socioeconomic transformation
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce a new Special Issue entitled “Pathways of Urbanization: From Spatial Dynamics to Planning Futures”. Urbanization is a complex process shaped by spatial dynamics, planning frameworks, socioeconomic change, and technological innovation. As cities continue to evolve, new pressures, changes in land uses, and emerging urban morphologies have appeared, posing significant challenges for modeling and analyzing these transformations, and particularly for linking them with governance and planning strategies that guide sustainable urban futures.
This Special Issue invites contributions that explore urban dynamics, with a particular focus on the integration of planning frameworks and the socioeconomic processes that both shape and are shaped by urbanization in an increasingly digitized world. We encourage research on the role of digitalization, ranging from the use of GIS, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence to the digitization of planning documents and spatial strategies in transforming urban analysis and planning practice. We also welcome studies that question how existing modeling frameworks adapt to emerging paradigms such as demographic change and new governance structures. By bridging technical, institutional, and societal perspectives, this Special Issue seeks to advance knowledge on how urbanization pathways can be steered toward sustainability, equity, and resilience.
Key Topics of Interest
We welcome interdisciplinary contributions, including but not limited to the following:
- Urban dynamics and simulation: Parcel, pixel, and 2D/3D approaches to model urban morphology, peri-urbanization processes, land-change dynamics, and future scenarios.
- Planning and governance integration: Interactions between land-use/strategic planning, legal frameworks, and spatial transformations.
- Socioeconomic and demographic transformations: Links between urban form, land-change, and social/economic change, including contexts of population decline.
- Addressing spatial segregation: Integrating social, residential, environmental, and governance perspectives for a comprehensive understanding of urban inequalities.
- Digitalization and AI in urban research: Intelligent methods for analyzing spatial datasets, planning documents, and decision-making processes.
- Sustainability and resilience pathways: Implications of evolving urban patterns for equity, resource efficiency, and adaptive capacity.
This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, review papers, and case studies that provide innovative approaches and practical insights into the dynamics of urbanization and planning sustainable urban futures.
Dr. Dario Domingo
Dr. Ana Beatriz Pierri-Daunt
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. Urban Science 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 1600 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
- urban dynamics
- planning and governance
- simulation and modeling
- socioeconomic change
- spatial segregation
- sustainability and resilience
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