Call for papers for International Planning Studies - Deadline Monday 17 December

What is left of planning?
Call for papers for International Planning Studies - Deadline Monday 17 December

Pursuing its mission to improve and enhance discussion and exchange on current and emerging issues
in planning from a critical perspective, IPS opens a call for papers focussing on ‘What is left of
planning?’.

The editors would be interested in a broad range of contributions from theoretical and historical
analyses of the rise of neo-liberal thinking in planning through to reports and reflections by
planning practitioners on local practices which have challenged orthodoxy from a left point of
view.

The call follows the birth and first symposium of Planning Network UK, an ‘organisation seeking
to establish a network to support critical thinking about the current state of planning in the UK’
(PNUK, 2006) and comprising both professionals and researchers in the field of planning. The aim of
the call is to promote the production and submission of a series of progressive and/or critical
papers in planning research focussing on the shifting role and aims of planning in a neo-liberal
globalisation context. Andy Inch and Tim Marshall’s article published in issue 12/1 could ideally
provide a trail to follow, but papers pushing forward any further or additional thesis and/or
stemming from planning cultures other than the British one will be also welcome. They will have to
be submitted to the Editorial Manager by Monday 17 December 2007 at the latest and will follow the
usual review procedure. Selected papers will be published in a special issue edited by Michael
Edwards and John Lovering in Spring 2008. Any query to the editors or Denise Phillips
(PhillipsDE@cf.ac.uk).

Planning, at the urban, regional and national and international levels, faces new challenges,
notably those related to the growth of globalisation as both an objective socio-economic process and
a shift in policy-maker perceptions and modes of analysis. IPS addresses these issues by publishing
quality research in a variety of specific fields and from a range of theoretical and normative
perspectives, which helps improve understanding of the actual and potential role of planning and
planners in this context. Specific policy areas covered include, but not solely, urban design,
economic development, environmental policy, spatial planning, housing, transport, social inclusion.
IPS fills a gap between the more specialist theoretical and empirical journals in planning and
urban-regional studies. In doing so it throws new light on the influences on, and effects of, the
evolution of planning theory, practice and process, and the outcomes of planning, past and present.
Contributors are invited to submit articles based on original empirical or theoretical work, or
assessments or critiques of existing studies that offer new perspectives, critical insights, or new
data to stimulate and inform debate over the future development of planning.

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Demographic Changes and the New Landscapes for Planning
Call for Papers for International Planning Studies - Deadline 1 February 2008

IPS aims at improving and enhancing discussion and exchange on current and emerging planning
issues; on the development of theoretical and methodological framework; and on innovative
perspectives within the field. Within these aims, IPS opens a call for papers on the topic of
‘Demographic Cha
nges and the New Landscapes for Planning’.

Demographic studies have seen huge changes in the past years, due to changing nature of the object
of their studies. New trends have emerged in population growth and decline, as well as population
movements and attitudes. These changes increasingly affect behaviours towards location and the use
of space undertaken by individuals and societies. This has become a concern in both developed as
well as developing countries. Most European countries see an increasingly ageing population;
internal migrations from peripheral to central territories; and strong pressure by migrants coming
from other countries external to its borders. Other parts of the world register similar or
complementary changes. Many research work have been initiated and conducted on this issue and
published papers cover some of the dynamics described in different contexts. While the
Anglo-American world is slow in taking up, in other planning contexts a plethora of papers have
addressed the subject, though only few of these findings are available for English readers.

Too few have taken the occasion for reflecting on these issues as elements changing the landscapes
of planning. With ‘landscape’ we mean here two different types of landscape. The economic,
social and - most of all - political landscape within which planning acts at local level. This is
the institutional landscape of planning; it changes abruptly following demographic changes and
in-forms (often restricting) the space for planning. The second landscape we refer to here is the
physical, emotional, identity-laden landscape that constitutes the material background for
people’s and local societies’ behaviours in respect to land and its uses.

Within this background demographic changes represent a challenge to change and review the
principles (for example, growth as taken for granted and constituting the main element) upon which
planning has been traditionally based and has flourished for nearly a century. Are territories in
decline (in terms of population and/or economy) and shrinking cities necessarily negative for
planning? They certainly are if we accept the current framework and conditions of and for
development as paradigmatic and unchangeable, but could we think of and develop alternative
paradigms and modes for action? Are there case studies that seem to favour innovative and different
approaches to this subject? Could we envisaged new and emerging approaches to face these new
challenges for planning theory and practice? The call for paper will be open until Friday 1 February
2008, papers will have to be submitted to the Editorial Manager and will subsequently follow the
usual peer-reviewing procedure. Selected papers will be published in a special issue edited by Klaus
Kunzmann, John Lovering and Francesca Sartorio in Autumn 2008. Any query to the editors or Denise
Phillips (PhillipsDE@cf.ac.uk).

Planning, at the urban, regional and national and international levels, faces new challenges,
notably those related to the growth of globalisation as both an objective socio-economic process and
a shift in policy-maker perceptions and modes of analysis. IPS addresses these issues by publishing
quality research in a variety of specific fields and from a range of theoretical and normative
perspectives, which helps improve understanding of the actual and potential role of planning and
planners in this context. Specific policy areas covered include, but not solely, urban design,
economic development, environmental policy, spatial planning, housing, transport, social inclusion.
IPS fills a gap between the more specialist theoretical and empirical journals in planning and
urban-regional studies. In doing so it throws new light on the influences on, and effects of, the
evolution of planning theory, practice and process, and the outcomes of planning, past and present.
Contributors are invited to submit articles based on original empirical or theoretical work, or
assessments or critiques of existing studie
s that offer new perspectives, critical insights, or new
data to stimulate and inform debate over the future development of planning.