Carolina Planning Journal

Call for Proposals addressing Access in Planning and Urban Studies

Carolina Planning Journal, the oldest student-run planning publication in the country, seeks proposals for papers with an empirical or theoretical approach to the theme of access in planning and urban studies for volume 51. See below for details on proposal requirements.

Access is often equated with empowerment, and undoubtedly, enabling access can be a form of procedural justice. But as with any tool, access can help or harm. Access to capital, for instance, could be a much-needed grant, or it could be a subprime loan. Access can also entail exposure, whether that is exposure from successful public outreach or exposure in a smart city data breach. Those are just a few interpretations of the theme, but they are meant to illustrate that access is never neutral.

Our aim for the 51st volume of CPJ is to explore the tensions in access and the contradictions it can pose in planning theory and practice. The theme’s elasticity supports our goal of presenting creative and unexpected perspectives on access. We also hope to publish interdisciplinary works that bridge planning and fields such as policy analysis, public health, and geography.

We welcome approaches communicated primarily through writing, visualizations, or a blend of the two. Final articles should be 3000 words or fewer.

Topics of interest include:

Accessibility: disability justice; ethics of digital or automated translation services; or cartography designed for the sensory impaired

Engagement: new engagement strategies or tools for empowering community participation; data physicalization; or participatory GIS

Exposure: predatory inclusion; community displacement mechanisms or resistance strategies; climate resilience; or impacts of rapidly changing wetland protections

Public Services: urban/rural disparities in services; data access or privacy in smart city initiatives; or spatial or temporal modulations of the availability of public transit and other amenities

Urban Morphology: quantifying the impact of complete streets laws on the built environment; or police presence in communities undergoing neighborhood change

Proposal Format

Proposals should be no more than two pages (not counting references).
Please include:

  • Tentative title
  • Research question
  • Key context for the topic
  • Description or list of data and methods you expect to use
  • Prospective list of references

DEADLINE: Proposals are due by 11:59 pm on October 31, 2025.

Submit proposals and questions to:  CarolinaPlanningJournal@gmail.com