Editorial: plaNext and planning in transition (2015–2025)

Abstract

When plaNext first emerged in 2015, it was born out of a decision that the field of spatial planning needed a dedicated platform for emerging scholars who would highlight new voices. Ten years later, the world we plan for has shifted significantly, and so has our journal.

The purpose of this special issue “plaNext in Transition 2015–2025” is to reflect on the journal’s evolution over the past decade and to envision its future trajectory for the next ten years. It marks a moment of reflection and reimagination. Over the past decade, plaNext has accompanied and often anticipated momentous changes: the climate emergency transitioning from future threat to present crisis, new movements for social justice and spatial equity gaining visibility, digitalization and AI altering how we imagine urban futures, and an increasingly interconnected yet still fractured global planning discourse. We thought that it would be interesting to see how plaNext has evolved over the last decade, and to reflect on the next decade for the journal, especially as the name of the journal implies to “plan” what is coming “next” as in “next generation of planners and planning as a discipline”. This special issue brings together contributions on both editorial developments and future directions, as well as on current planning debates, challenges, and emerging trends.