Special Issue "Circular Cities"

The articles in this Special Issue offer a broad range of approaches towards urban circularity. Ankita Singhvi, Aristide Athanassiadis, and Claudia R. Binder provide a literature overview on spatial planning in circular cities, followed by an article by Deepika Mathur, Maneka Jayasinghe, and Kerstin K. Zander, who address the regional scale of circular policies based on an exemplary building project realized in Alice Springs, Australia. Samuel Holden examines the ways in which housing policy in Sheffield triggered a struggle for alternative housing provision, partly realized through the reuse of second-hand materials. Nicholas Lynch and Christopher Phelan analyse how urban reuse centres in North America help keep materials recirculating while simultaneously building local communities. Elena Sischarenco’s article highlights the role of practices and knowledge in the recycling and reuse of building components in Northern Italy, while Francesco Vettori engages with a collective of elderly activists and analyses their approach of adaptive reuse and food recovery in Empoli, Italy. The last article, authored by Adam Przywara, articulates the phenomenon of wartime circularity that (re-)emerges today in Eastern Europe.