Special Issues

Informal pre-submission inquiries on whether the Journal has a potential interest in particular topic areas are welcome. Such enquiries should be emailed to the Journal administrator responsible for Special Issues, Ruth Harkin.

Formal proposals can be submitted at any time. All formal proposals should be emailed to the Journal administrator responsible for Special Issues, Ruth Harkin.

Guest Editors are required to use the Urban Studies Special Issue Proposal Form to make a proposal submission. This form is designed to elicit information specifically used by the Journal to assess the submission. The form imposes strict word limitations on question responses. All aspects of the form must be completed and in doing so word limits must always be adhered to.

After submission, an initial check is made by the Special Issue Editor and the Editor-in-Chief to ensure that the proposal as submitted meets submission requirements and standards. Proposals not meeting requirements may be returned to Guest Editors for revision, or they may be rejected.

Special Issue proposals that do meet requirements are then assessed by a panel of Journal Editors. The rationale, coherence and innovativeness of the proposal are key criteria used by the Editors in this assessment. All included papers will also be expected make an original contribution to urban studies beyond their empirical subject-matter; descriptive local case studies are not acceptable. Strong submissions will also demonstrate a wide geographical range of contributions in the sense of proposals incorporating papers that examine how the main Special Issue themes play out across a range of countries and regions, as well as a broad geographical range of authors. The track record of Special Issue guest editors and paper authors is also considered.

Once the decision has been taken to advance a proposal to panel assessment, we will respond to proposers with a decision within six weeks. On the basis of panel assessment, the Special Issue Editor will issue a decision letter with one of four outcomes (Reject/Requires Major Revision/Requires Minor Revision/Provisional Accept) together with feedback on the proposal explaining the decision.

Once a Special Issue proposal has been provisionally accepted, the designated Guest Editors will be issued with further guidance, which contains details of the administrative arrangements for progressing the Special Issue to publication, a publication timescale that includes important interim deadlines, and formatting requirements.

Prospective Guest Editors should note that they will be required to play an integral part in ensuring the quality of the Issue and thus of the articles comprising it. In particular:

• Guest Editors themselves must assess each paper and advise the author(s) on changes required before it is submitted to the Journal, to ensure that their paper is likely to come through the refereeing process successfully. Individual papers may still experience difficulty in the refereeing process, including rejection. But as the loss of several papers will undermine the viability of the Special Issue it is imperative that the Guest Editor(s) ensure as far as is possible that papers are robust pre-submission.
• Guest Editors are responsible for identifying reviewers acceptable to the Journal (active/expertise in the relevant field; absence of close links to paper authors – e.g. reviewers should not be at the same institution or have previously published with the authors) for each of the submitted papers. A minimum of 3 reviewers is required for each paper, but, as many choose to decline an invitation to review, Guest Editors should initially identify at least 6 potential reviewers per paper.
• Guest Editors are closely involved in the decision-making process following paper review. Once all the referee reports on a SI paper have been received, Guest Editors must consider the comments of the reviewers and draft a decision letter for consideration by an assigned Journal Editor, who will retain the authority to reject or modify Guest Editor decision recommendations.
• Guest Editors must ensure that, collectively, the individual papers submitted contribute to overall Special Issue coherence. Key will be ensuring that each of the papers clearly relates to the overall ambitions and purpose of the Special Issue. The introductory paper by the Guest Editors is pivotal here, providing the conceptual framework in which paper authors can position themselves. Papers must not read as separate case studies in which the connections to the ‘bigger issues’ raised in the Special Issue are left to the reader to identify.
• Guest Editors must ensure that all papers are progressed timeously, so that the final set deadline for the submission of all copy is met. This will involve being proactive in maintaining progression of the papers through the review system.
• Guest Editors must be proactive where the viability of the Special Issue is threatened by dilatory authors or by attrition of Special Issue substance through paper rejection. This will involve bringing problems to the attention of the Journal in a timely manner and discussing possible methods of resolving these problems.
• Guest Editors will be required to sign an agreement document that confirms they understand and accept their responsibilities and undertake to fulfil them to the highest standards of editorial integrity.

Guest Editors: Antoine Courmont and Burcu Baykurt

Google, a Major Stakeholder in Local Governance – Special Issue Rationale

Google, a major stakeholder in local governance? by Antoine Courmont and Burcu Baykurt

Putting the digital growth machine in place: Shifting growth genres in Silicon Valley’s urban politics by Christo Sims

Waze seating in the control room: Enacting the data bricolage in urban traffic management in Santiago de Chile by Ignacio Pérez Karich

Google urbanism 2010–2020: From infrastructural control to growing bit by bit by Burcu Baykurt

A gift from heaven: Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer and its tech-down approach to monitor urban sustainability beyond local contexts by Florian Koch and Sarah Beyer

Navigating frictions in digital urbanism: Google Maps, public transportation and collaborative data-driven mobility governance by Laure Guimbail

Post-political clouds: Suspended failure in Google’s data centre development by Constance Carr and Karinne Madron

Locked in a data imperative? French local businesses faced with Google Maps by Antoine Courmont

Commentaries

From the control room to the Googleplex: ‘Innovation needs a where’ by Sharon Zukin

Infrastructuration and spatial governance: Why Google is not just another service provider by Nancy Odendaal

Guest Editors: Lorenzo Vidal, Javier Gil and Miguel A Martinez

Global Corporate Landlords and Tenant Struggles – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

Global corporate landlordism and a new cycle of tenant contention by Lorenzo Vidal, Javier Gil and Miguel A. Martínez

Leveraging the collective: Contesting California’s corporate landlords through multibuilding organising by Mathilde Lind Gustavussen

Laboratory Barcelona: Tenants, corporate landlords and housing justice by Jordi Bonshoms-Guzman

Housing struggles challenging racial capitalism: The politics of the No Evictions Network in Glasgow by Ana Santamarina and Lazaros Karaliotas

Overcoming hyper-localism: How global corporate landlords shape their own opposition by Lisa Vollmer

Striking back with the law: Legal struggles against corporate landlords in Barcelona and Berlin by Gabriele D’Adda and Joanna Kusiak

Commentaries

Forging a global union against rentier exploitation: A commentary on tenant internationalism by Marta Ill-Raga

Neighbourhoods against global corporate landlords by Lorenzo Vidal

Corporate landlords in Latin America: Notes to an ongoing debate by Ivana Socoloff

Guest Editors: Jane M Jacobs and Ofita Purwani

Royal Agency in Contemporary City Building in Southeast Asia – Special Issue Rationale

Visible presence, unseen hand: Royalty and reality in the reshaping of Bangkok by Michael Herzfeld

Digital cities and their commercial aesthetics: The celebration of monarchy in Bangkok by Bronwyn Isaacs

Metropolis, monarchy and the masses: Anti-royalism in Thailand’s contemporary urban spaces by Khorapin Phuaphansawat

Sovereign spectacles: Absolutism and architecture in the urban development of Brunei by Mu’izz Abdul Khalid and Hafizah Nor

Traditionalising of Yogyakarta’s urban landscape: The return of the cosmological axis by Bayu Dardias Kurniadi

Guest Editors: Gareth Fearn, Güldem Özatağan and Ayda Eraydın

Authoritarian Neoliberal and Illiberal Urbanisms – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

Neoliberal crises and the city: Wrestling with authoritarian neoliberal urbanism(s) by Güldem Özatağan, Gareth Fearn and Ayda Eraydin

Community politics in urban regeneration under authoritarian entrepreneurial governance by Ebru Kurt-Özman and Tuna Tasan-Kok

Housing the historical bloc: Civil society contestation of authoritarian neoliberalism in England by Gareth Fearn

Authoritarian neoliberalism, urban peripheries and the rise of the extreme right in Brazil by Leonardo Fontes

Authoritarian urbanism beyond the city: Infrastructure-led extended urbanisation and India’s more-than-neoliberal configurations by Nitin Bathla

The urban question under illiberalism? Three thematic approaches by Jason D Luger and Miklós János Dürr

Grass through concrete: Authoritarian governance and the urban politics of minimal change by Sofia Borushkina

Urban solidarities in late modern times: Interspaces for meaningful engagement in Los Angeles and Amsterdam by Elena Ponzoni, Tara Rose Fiorito and Halleh Ghorashi

Anticipatory climate governance: Limits to current practices in Montreal by Hélène Madénian, Sophie L Van Neste and Alexis Guillemard

From entrepreneurial to managerial statecraft: New trends of urban governance transformation in post-pandemic China by Fulong Wu, Handuo Deng, Yi Feng, Weikai Wang, Ying Wang and Fangzhu Zhang

Guest Editors: Daniel Muñoz, Jamie Arathoon and Jennie Middleton

Infrastructural Encounters Disability in Urban Lives – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

Autoethnography of disability and active travel in Greater Manchester: Encountering (non)citizenship through access controls on traffic-free walking, wheeling and cycling paths by Harriet Larrington-Spencer

‘There’s nothing wrong with you’: The making of disability through encounters in accessible parking spaces by Vera Isabella Kubenz

Guest Editors: Zachary Lamb, Esther Sullivan and Andrew Rumbach

Manufacturing the Urban – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

The multiple drivers of thermal disparities in US manufactured housing by C J Gabbe, Gregory Pierce, Matthew J Barnett and Sara Hughes

Eviction from manufactured home parks by Jacob Haas and Peter Hepburn

From parks to plots: Manufactured housing in different contexts by Noah J Durst, Angelica Gacis, Nithya Mylakumar, Angela Perez and Armin Yeganeh

Local land use regulations and new mobile home concentration by Casey J Dawkins

The role of home and land tenure in shaping opportunities and challenges for manufactured home residents by Rachel Siegel and Seva Rodnyansky

Extreme heat vulnerability of manufactured housing in arid urban environments by Philip Stoker, Xahria Santiago and Mark Kear

Guest Editors: Jonathan Corcoran and Rebecca Wickes

Reimagining Activity Spaces in Urban Contexts – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

Antisocial and prosocial activities at crime hot spots by David Weisburd, Kiseong Kuen, Clair V Uding and Justin Ready

Beyond residential and extra-local spaces: Gun violence exposure in urban neighbourhood mobility networks by Noli Brazil

Guest Editors: Gabriela Debrunner, David Kaufmann and Justin Kadi

The Business of Densification – Special Issue Rationale

Rooming flats: How financialisation-led densification is spurring inner-city studentification in Lodz, Poland by Jakub Zasina and Konrad Żelazowski

Skies over Frölunda: ‘Mixed city’ densification and the lived space of a stigmatised Modernist suburb in Sweden by Helena Holgersson

Densification by commodification: Comparing the production of housing in the Gauteng City-Region and Alpine Rhine Valley by Johannes Herburger and Lindsay Blair Howe

Pursuing municipal land use interests in densifying cities: How municipalities strategically apply land value capture contracting to trade-off economic value of density for other gains by Pauliina Krigsholm, Tuulia Puustinen and Heidi Falkenbach

The regeneration path not taken further: An experiment in urban densification and state entrepreneurialism in a resettlement neighborhood in Suzhou, China by Paola Pellegrini and Jinliu Chen

Desegregating through densification? Potential and limitations in the case of Oslo by Rebecca Cavicchia and Roberta Cucca

Municipal approaches to suburban densification: Understanding the role of planners’ interest and agency by Cornelia Roboger

The politics of vertical densification in Chile: Bridging planning, contestation and housing welfare under progressive municipalism by Ernesto López-Morales, Rodrigo Caimanque, Nicolás Herrera and Odette Garrido

Small plots, big stakes: Strategic responses to individual landowners’ property rights in densification projects by Josje Bouwmeester, Deniz Ay, Jean-David Gerber and Thomas Hartmann

Guest Editor: Holly Randell-Moon 

Indigenous Urban Studies – Special Issue Rationale

Guest Editors: Lucilla Barchetta and Mathilda Rosengren

Temporalities of Urban Natures – Special Issue Rationale

Guest Editors: Yingling Fan, Astrid Wood and Evelyn Blumenberg

Urban Transport as a Social Construct – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

Urban transport as a social construct: Reimagining transport’s role in urban studies by Yingling Fan, Astrid Wood and Evelyn A Blumenberg

Turning the wheel on active transportation: Shifts in policymaking and planning for cycling and pedestrian infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic in large urban areas by Remington Latanville and Raktim Mitra

Unravelling cross-boundary travel flow and its place-based explanatory factors in the Hong Kong metro system by Mingzhi Zhou, Hanxi Ma, and Jiangping Zhou

Social representation, self-identity and anticipated guilt in universal access: A constructivist approach to (non-)visible disabilities by Ho-Yin Chan, Ka Ho Tsoi and Anthony Chen

A multi-faceted concept of safety in the public transport system: The case of Gran Valparaiso in Chile by Claudio Fuentes, Carolina Busco, Felipe González and Francisca Carril

Mobility practices and the social construction of urban centralities in Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Bogotá (Colombia) by Eugênia Viana Cerqueira, Ana Marcela Ardila Pinto, Natalia Villamizar-Duarte, Daniela Antunes Lessa and César A. Ruiz

Profiling caregivers: Caregiving workload, mobility, stress, and remote work difficulties by Ignacio Tiznado-Aitken, Giovanni Vecchio, Sebastian Astroza, Juan Antonio Carrasco and María Consuelo Smith Piel

Doing transit infrastructure otherwise: Arts in Transit, the Southwest Corridor by Rebecca Heimel

Disrupted spaces, adaptive lives: Unequal impacts of Hanoi’s first urban railway lines by Michelle Kee and Sarah Turner

Towards addressing transportation planning’s contradictions: The unified theory for transportation planning based on the capabilities approach by Matthias Sweet

Railyard reuse and spatial justice: Environmental and socio-economic impacts of infrastructural removal and intensification in Chicago by Wataru Morioka and Julie Cidell

Flyovers, social constructs and uncertainty: (Un)covering the blind spots of urbanisation in Chongqing by Qiwei Peng

Arturo Soria’s Ciudad Linear of Madrid: From a (proto)transit-oriented bourgeoise utopia to a traffic-oriented upper-class neighborhood by Diego Caro

Editors: Michele Acuto, Julie-Ann Boudreau, Simon Goldhill, Roger Keil and Xuefei Ren

Urban Imaginations and Urban Futures – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

Subverting speculative urbanism: Cityscape in New York 2140 by Ali Riza Taskale

Seeing like AI? AI urbanism reconsidered through a critical posthumanist perspective by Hwankyung Janet Lee

Off-grid electricity imaginaries: Tracing urban citizenship in Cape Town’s informal settlements by Thandeka Tshabalala, Megan Davies, Maarten Hajer and Jesse Hoffman

Guest Editors: Joost van Hoof and Hannah R. Marston

Urban and Ageing Population – Special Issue Rationale

Papers include:

Towards evidence-based approaches to monitoring and evaluating age-friendly cities and communities: Reflections from the Western Pacific and Nordic Regions by Wenqian Xu, Minna Zechner, Thava Viknaraj Sivabalan, Lian Leng Low, Changwoo Shon, Honglin Chen, Arlind Reuter, Diane Turner, Elisa Tiilikainen, Emi Kiyota and Susanne Iwarsson

Towards an evaluation framework for age-friendly parks: A supply–demand coordination perspective by Yilun Cao, Xinwei He, Yuhan Guo, Yuhao Fang, Kexin Huang and Shucheng Ai

Guest Editors: Lachlan Burke, Carl Grodach, Ruth Lane and Anthony Kent

Inclusive Circular Cities – Special Issue Rationale

The circular economy is over: The scalar politics of circular production by Federico Savini

Guest Editors: Ilia Antenucci, Armin Beverungen, Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal and Randi Heinrichs

Ordinary Urban Speculations – Special Issue Rationale

Guest Editors: Orlando Woods and Colin McFarlane

Density Pathways in Urbanising Asia – Special Issue Rationale

Guest Editors: Sergio Ruiz Cayuela, Owain Hanmer, Rivka Saltiel and Anna Verwey

Conceptualising the Urban Food Commons: Challenges, Potentialities and Strategies for Transformation

Guest Editors: Jason Corburn and Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah

Urban Health Equity – Special Issue Rationale

Guest Editors: Deen Sharp and Thiruni Kelegama

The Urbanisation of Conflict and Conflict Urbanisation – Special Issue Rationale

Guest Editors: Vanesa Castán Broto, Michele Acuto and Sean Fox

Climate Urbanism, Resilience, and Justice – Special Issue Rationale