Despite growing consensus that today’s socio-ecological crisis demands transformative change, institutional responses remain largely focused on technology-based incremental improvements within existing systems. Such an approach fails to address the systemic causes of climate change and their structural consequences. Recent literature frames the lack of transformative action as a “crisis of imagination,” yet often limits imagination to individual or expert domains, neglecting its socio-political dimensions. Arguing that the crisis of imagination is also a crisis of recognition, this chapter highlights that Indigenous peoples, local communities, and grassroots organisations have long envisioned and enacted alternative socio-ecological imaginaries. Drawing from the concepts of climate imaginaries and prefigurative politics, the chapter explores the transformative potential of alternative imaginaries from a political ontology perspective. The empirical context of the study is the “Teia dos Povos” (freely translated as Web of Peoples), a network of communities, territories, peoples and political organisations across rural and urban Brazil, with the aim of formulating paths to collective emancipation through food sovereignty. Through a grounded theoretical analysis of primary source material produced by Teia dos Povos, the chapter demonstrates how alternative climate imaginaries disrupt dominant ontologies, opening space through prefigurative politics for more just and ecological practices here and now. ... Read more

Digital participation tools hold the promise to empower citizens and local communities to address urban development challenges. However, although many scholars have experimented with digital tools for citizen engagement, their efforts remain largely disconnected from planning practice. To address this disconnection, this paper analyses digital participation in planning from three perspectives: participatory planning, citizen engagement level, and human–computer interaction (HCI). We considered a wide range of digital participation tools, from tools designed for research projects to commercial and open-source tools. Our results show that there are two levels of “power mediation” and their “mediating actors” in digital participatory planning: (1) the digital tool and the HCI designer who creates the tool, and (2) the planning cycle and the planner who defines the participatory process. We furthermore highlight the importance of embedding participation tools in complementarity with each other to empower citizens at different levels. Taking these two insights into account, we developed an integrated framework – the EmpowerCycle – to embed digital participation tools in planning processes for citizen empowerment. The framework addresses the disconnection between digital tools and planning practice, supporting both researchers and practitioners in the design and implementation of digital participation tools in planning practice and decision-making processes. ... Read more

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are central to urban resilience efforts, offering climate adaptation benefits alongside social and well-being co-benefits. However, without systematic consideration of socio-spatial factors, NbS implementation may reinforce existing inequalities. This paper adopts a justice-oriented approach to support equitable NbS planning, using Cape Town, South Africa, as a case study. We develop a spatial decision-support framework that integrates ecosystem service demand, social vulnerability, and environmental risk to prioritize NbS types and locations. Results help identify both areas with the greatest need for NbS interventions and the types of NbS most suitable for those areas. ... Read more

As data science increasingly shapes educational programmes, research agendas, and societal narratives, its practices have come under scrutiny for reinforcing historical inequalities, perpetuating biases, and neglecting critical engagement with issues of power, capital, and representation. Drawing upon critical social science theories including decoloniality, intersectionality, radical transdisciplinarity, and reflexivity, this paper narratively explores the limitations of conventional data science methods and pedagogy, advocating instead for a critical paradigm shift aimed at reclaiming data science for just geographies. We highlight the necessity for an approach that recognises data science as inherently subjective, deeply embedded in social and political contexts, and fundamentally shaped by historical legacies of colonialism and exclusion. By situating our experiences within universities in Western Europe, we illustrate how education and research can inadvertently perpetuate harmful structures when failing to critically engage with the positionalities and power dynamics inherent to data practices. Responding to these broader societal challenges, we propose a practical, iterative framework for critical data science that has emerged from our teaching methods and research experiences. This framework invites researchers and educators to continually reflect upon inclusivity, inequality, participation, power, and positionality throughout each stage of the data science process. Ultimately, our aim is to empower a generation of data scientists capable of interrogating dominant narratives, embracing diverse perspectives, and collaboratively working towards more equitable, just, and caring futures for all. ... Read more

Conventional disaster recovery often prioritizes rapid restoration to a baseline state but potentially perpetuates pre-existing vulnerabilities that neglect long-term resilience. Unlike current approaches that emphasize physical and economic rebuilding with a blind eye to the previous context of disasters, Reformative Recovery (RR) highlights the need to intervene in social and environmental long-term processes leading to vulnerability. This paper advances the concept of ‘Reformative Recovery’ and proposes an analytical framework as a sense-making tool to guide interpretation of recovery dynamics by foregrounding the conditions that foster vulnerability and impede long-term resilience. RR reframes recovery as a continuous and non-linear process shaped by social and institutional dynamics. The analytical framework is developed through a systematic scoping review and structured around six dimensions relevant for RR: 1) social justice, 2) governance arrangements, 3) community and culture, 4) financial mechanisms, 5) built environment, and 6) critical services. As an extension to the state of the art, a social justice dimension is proposed as an overarching component. Furthermore, the concept of critical services is extended beyond networked infrastructures to include locally defined essential services. These dimensions reflect the complex and interconnected nature of disaster impacts. For each dimension, we propose diagnostic prompts to support critical assessment of conditions and potential for inclusive and just post-disaster recovery by means of reformation. Rather than prescriptive indicators, these prompts serve as deliberative tools to support reflective and context-sensitive use by decision-makers and researchers. RR can be used to bridge short-term actions with long-term resilience-building in diverse contexts. ... Read more

Post-disaster recovery is widely regarded as the least understood, yet highly consequential, phase of disaster management, shaping both short consequences and long-term trajectories of affected communities. Recovery efforts tend to prioritise physical reconstruction, often deepening socio-spatial inequalities. This paper argues for a reconceptualisation of recovery through the lenses of spatial justice, highlighting three interrelated dimensions: distributive justice (equitable allocation of resources in space), procedural justice (inclusive and participatory spatial governance) and recognition justice (valuing lived spatial experiences and human dignity). While these dimensions are often present in critiques of recovery practices, they have been approached in a fragmented manner. To address this gap, a systematic literature review (n = 68) examines how recovery practices reproduce socio-spatial inequalities, how governance structures shape recovery processes and how spatial justice can offer a transformative opening in disaster recovery. Understandings of, and responses to, disaster are reframed through the spatial justice lens, proposing an integrated conceptual framework for spatial justice in disaster recovery as a scaffold for critical analysis in research and practice. This provides a useful starting point for more detailed, case-based and methodologically innovative studies that can test and extend the framework. ... Read more

Part of TU Delft’s Climate Action program is developing climate action pedagogies at the classroom and course levels. This contribution presents our open pedagogical language that shares evidence-informed instructional design principles and teaching practices in which students not only learn about urban climate change and sustainability but, in particular, about intervening in society or industry (action!) and its effects in everyday practice. In addition to technical system knowledge, this type of education provides students with crucial ecological and social entrepreneurship skills.

The building blocks of this language are so-called pedagogical patterns, which describe a specific (set of) instructional design principle(s) of a course or classroom setting. Each pattern is presented in a comparable way via a given template that asks for [i] a title, [ii] an illustration, [iii] a hypothesis or statement on the value this pattern brings, [iv] the evidence from teaching practice and/or the educational scientific knowledge supporting the pattern, [v] a brief description of practical implications when implementing or using the pattern, [vi] the relation to other patterns. Pedagogical patterns are not prescriptive; they show what educators could do pedagogically.

Our first pedagogical patterns are based on the teaching practices of our Delft Climate Action educators and focus on:
*citizen science approaches focusing on the adaptation of the urban area to the weather and climate of tomorrow.
*interdisciplinarity for climate adaptivity in urbanised delta regions, where students work for and with a local government or stakeholder related to urban heat, drought, air pollution, and flooding.
* entrepreneurship in the built environment, where students develop a design and entrepreneurial plan for a sustainability challenge.
* action research focusing on socio-spatial inequality, diversity, resilience, and well-being for a climate challenge in a collaborative way with practitioners and community members. ... Read more

In an age marked by converging global crises—climate change, growing inequality, democratic erosion, and increasing socio-spatial inequality and fragmentation—the search for justice has become a definitive imperative for urban planning. One way to explore these issues is through an exercise of collective imagination we call The Manifesto for the Just City. [...] ... Read more

As climate change makes the future of urban living appear increasingly daunting, many people and communities are already experiencing climate impacts. This paper highlights the disproportionate nature of climate change, from unequal historical responsibilities to unequal climate impacts that fall on the most vulnerable and unequal prospects that hinder people and countries from adapting to a changing climate now and in the future. Through an arts-based literature review, the paper demonstrates that climate change's effects and responses often reinforce existing inequalities, systematically pushing people, communities and entire countries into further vulnerability. Acknowledging that spatial processes play a critical role in creating, shaping and perpetuating inequalities and oppression, we advocate for spatial justice in climate action and offer eight principles to support spatial scholars and practitioners in adopting a critical perspective on climate change in urban contexts. ... Read more

In response to increasing climate risks, cities have set ambitious sustainability targets, aiming to become climate-proof through various urban interventions. Many of these interventions require citizen support and direct action, from the adoption of solar energy and rainwater collectors to behaviour change towards sustainable living. Citizen engagement is thus crucial for the success of climate initiatives in urban areas. Digital participation tools can support this process, given their potential to enable remote participation, reach a large number of citizens, and enhance governance transparency. While digital tools have been used in planning for many years, these tools focus on generic urban planning issues and do not address the complexity and uncertainties inherent to climate change from a citizen perspective. This paper presents insights from the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative. Citizen Voice aims to empower communities in urban planning and design by fostering situated participation and open data practices. The initiative has been active since 2021, using a transdisciplinary approach in different research projects to understand how to engage citizens in climate action. This paper synthesises the main lessons learned from these projects into three dimensions: Climate communication, process challenges, and digital requirements. Through these dimensions, the paper provides concrete recommendations to engage citizens in climate action through digital technologies while also offering critical reflections on the opportunities and limitations of digital tools in citizen engagement in urban planning and design processes. ... Read more

Climate change is driving cities to transition toward more sustainable urban systems, often implementing these transitions through spatial interventions. However, without a deliberate focus on spatial justice, such climate initiatives risk exacerbating existing socio-spatial inequalities, leading to issues such as green gentrification and maladaptation, which affect vulnerable populations the most. Participatory practices have the potential to foster just transitions, yet they are not well integrated into planning and design processes and are insufficiently linked to spatial justice. This paper introduces a framework that integrates participatory approaches into a typical planning and design cycle through a spatial justice perspective. The framework is applied to eight cases in various geographical contexts, encompassing a range of practices from participatory planning workshops to the development of digital participation tools. Our findings suggest that the framework enables both researchers and practitioners to adopt a more holistic approach to participation in planning and design. Furthermore, we identify key enablers, barriers, and lessons learned from these cases, offering insights that can inform urban practitioners, policymakers, and researchers in advancing spatial justice through participatory planning. Ultimately, this study contributes to enabling just urban transitions by providing a structured approach to embedding spatial justice in participatory planning and design. ... Read more

This position paper consolidates the work of researchers from various departments and areas of expertise across the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology. It discusses the relevance, applications, and different methods of community engagement in the built environment. The inclusion of main take-away, recommendations for community engagement, and a range of example projects demonstrating various methods, bridge the gap from scientific knowledge to application in practice. ... Read more

With developments in computational infrastructures, data science and AI have advanced, and in part replaced, several processes of engineering, design, and development in urban spaces. Former students and researchers from technical universities worldwide now work in all sectors of society and hold influential positions related to data science and AI. Yet, our education and research apparatus doesn’t fully intersect with the reality of the world where data and digitisation is not only a means to a better future but can also be wielded to maintain structures of inequality, oppression and harm. In curriculums that are focussed around data analytics and machine learning, education material is dominated by western perspectives and largely developed by able-bodied cis-gendered men, centring singular thinking in how we collect, clean, map, model, interpret and evaluate data, and share or cite evidence. Those who are represented get to shape futures for themselves (educated, urban, young adults), while the rest of the identities and issues are shifted to the margins of society. When colonial forms of education at scale are combined with nationally funded Artificial Intelligence programs of research, it legitimises data extraction and unequal forms of participation in decision, labour, and society, further perpetuating damages to vulnerable communities. To make space for alternate social realities, lived experiences, datasets, methodologies, map-building practices, and frameworks, we have developed a decolonising process for data science education. Our approach combines inserting non-western geographical knowledge with transdisciplinary, community participation, and intersectional and reflexive thinking to deliver an open, interactive, and co-created textbook for geographic data science education at engineering universities. We envision this process and exemplary textbook to provide entry points for local initiatives and needs to start thinking about their decolonising practices with respect to data and AI based education and research. ... Read more

In a time defined by high urbanisation rates and looming or existing crises, it is critical to understand how cities can turn into places of resilience and strength, rather than become centres of vulnerabilities. Cities face several challenges today, starting from the unpredictability of climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how the magnitude and duration of disruptions are difficult to predict, challenging traditional risk-based management approaches to cope with crises. In this respect, resilience science has been taken up as it highlights the intricate, complex, and interdependent nature of urban systems. While a strict universal definition of resilience is lacking, it generally refers to the capacity to anticipate, withstand, adapt to and recover from shocks and stresses, such as natural disasters, economic downturns, public health crises, and social turmoil.

Very often, novel crises and emergencies tend to highlight and reveal long-existing, underlying problems. To increase resilience in an all-encompassing way, cities should focus on the deep-seated structural issues that hinder their capacity to adapt and thrive, such as inequality. In many urban areas, socioeconomic disparities are ingrained, with marginalised communities suffering most from crises. This policy brief is aimed at urban/local policymakers and stresses the need to consider inclusiveness in urban resilience. It discusses two (of the many) urban challenges that are periodically highlighted and exacerbated by new crises, such as energy poverty and service accessibility. The brief also offers some practical suggestions to develop an inclusive approach to a wider array of challenges derived from the programme Inclusive Climate Action Rotterdam. ... Read more

Governments often use price-based policies such as tax-subsidies and rebates to encourage households to shift to renewable energy sources like rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV). These policies, however, have primarily benefited high-income homeowners, leaving others behind. This paper proposes leveraging social networks’ influence on attitudes and perceptions to design more equitable solar PV adoption programs. Using data from Albany county (New York State, USA) we develop an Agent-based model, integrating a novel implementation of circles of influence into the theory of planned behavior. We test two policy categories (generic and targeted) under two network scenarios (integrated and segregated). Resulting solar PV adoption rates are evaluated using egalitarian, utilitarian and cost metrics to analyze policy impact on different income groups. Our findings indicate that network structure significantly influences adoption rates within income groups. Low-income groups in segregated networks can experience higher adoption driven by positive attitudes towards solar PV, while high-income groups in segregated networks may face poor policy performance despite higher affordability. Seeding policies and information dissemination through influential network members may not necessarily improve adoption rates, as trust can a more important role. The study underscores the importance of trusted information sources in influencing adoption decisions. The insights gained from this research can guide policy design for tailored interventions to improve access to renewable energy for all income groups. ... Read more

The TU Delft Strategic Planning Cycle is a comprehensive strategic planning model designed to enhance urban sustainability and inclusivity by incorporating a range of participatory tools and methodologies that facilitate broad stakeholder engagement through a detailed step-by-step planning cycle.

The TU Delft Strategic Planning Cycle is rooted in the Dutch tradition of democratic visioning and strategic planning, which emphasises the integration of policy and design alongside a strong participatory ethos. This tradition is central to the planning education offered at TU Delft, where students and professionals are trained to approach urban planning with a integrative perspective that combines technical expertise with a deep commitment to democratic processes and sustainable outcomes. ... Read more

Rechtvaardigheid wordt over de hele wereld gezien als fundament voor menselijke waardigheid en billijkheid. De filosoof John Rawls begint zijn klassieker A theory of justice met de woorden "Rechtvaardigheid is de voornaamste deugd van sociale instituties, zoals de waarheid dat is voor denksystemen. Maar een theorie, hoe elegant en praktisch ook, moet verworpen of herzien worden als deze onwaar blijkt. Net zoals wetten en instituties, hoe efficiënt en doordacht ze ook zijn, hervormd of afgeschaft moeten worden als deze onrechtvaardig blijken". [...] ... Read more

"With a large part of the built environment privately owned in many European cities, citizen engagement is crucial for the success of sustainability initiatives in urban areas. The use of digital platforms and tools can support this process, given their potential to enable remote participation, reach a large number of citizens, and enhance governance transparency. However, many digital platforms for citizen engagement in sustainability action remain underutilised.

This study adopts a user-centric perspective to analyse the interface design of over ten digital platforms and identify design elements that hinder or foster engagement. Our analysis highlights four main interface issues: disconnection between scientific data and personal experience, complex navigation, information overload, and limited opportunities for action.

To overcome these limitations, we developed a set of design guidelines addressing four themes: Awareness and framing, Individual and collective action, Effective use of data, and Navigation and visuals. We implemented these guidelines in two prototypes, focusing on heat waves and biodiversity loss in urban areas. The prototypes were tested in workshop settings with positive feedback from participants, corroborating the importance of citizen-centric interface design in ensuring effective citizen engagement." ... Read more

The ongoing debates surrounding sustainability transitions in cities and regions highlight the urgent need to make these transitions fairer, more democratic, and inclusive. Currently, there is increasing recognition that sustainability transitions must be more just to avoid the risk of failure and the deepening of discontent with climate action, particularly in disadvantaged urban areas and among marginalised communities. Similarly, in the field of urban planning, there is a rapidly expanding body of literature on spatial justice, emphasising the need for more equitable planning in terms of the spatial distribution of benefits and burdens, fairness in procedures, and recognition of the diverse needs and interests of different social groups. However, planning practice has yet to keep pace with this trend, and there is a significant knowledge gap regarding how to measure and evaluate spatial justice in the planning process. This paper seeks to address this gap by proposing a spatial justice assessment tool for planning documents. We outline the conceptual model that underpins the tool and demonstrate its application across four European cities.

The assessment is conducted in two phases. The first phase involves using the Values, Strategies, Objectives, and Actions (VSOA) approach to distil essential part of their agenda from the documents prepared by the cities. This approach provides a framework for analysing key components and understanding how values are articulated and translated into actionable measures. It helps to identify the overall vision, the strategies designed to achieve it, the specific objectives set, and the tangible actions proposed. In the second phase, we employ spatial justice as a lens for a qualitative evaluation of how cities address the dimensions of distributive, procedural, and recognition justice within city-wide planning documents. This includes ensuring the fair distribution of burdens and benefits, focusing on processes that do not exacerbate inequalities, and being attentive to needs and aspirations of marginalised and vulnerable groups and identities affected by these transitions.

The paper applies the evaluation tool in four diverse urban contexts: Belfast, Rotterdam, Granollers, and Budapest. These cities vary in size, are located in different parts of Europe, and represent different planning cultures. The plans assessed also cover a range of climate action documents, from overarching sustainability transition plans to more specific energy transition or climate resilience plans. We present and critically evaluate the scores produced by the evaluation of the four planning documents, discussing these findings in relation to the existing literature and considering their implications for planning and policy practice in the context of delivering more just urban sustainability transitions. By deploying the tool in these varied settings, we demonstrate its versatility and broad applicability as a spatial justice assessment framework for urban planning practice. Additionally, we illustrate its potential as a critical discourse analytical tool, revealing the extent to which sustainability transition discourses in urban planning adhere to the principles of spatial justice. ... Read more