Introduction to the Special Issue: Planning for Climate Transformations

Abstract

Growing climate impacts and ambitious calls to decarbonize society pose unprecedented challenges for cities and their built environments, political economic systems, and governance institutions. This special issue invites planning scholars to consider how planning research can inform transformative climate initiatives and how planning itself needs to transform to better support climate transformation. In this introduction, we review definitions of transformation, introduce each of the six articles and their approaches to transformation, and explore cross-cutting tensions among them. We conclude with our reflections for future research that would help planning prepare for and contribute to climate transformations.