A century ago, faced with crises in health, sanitation and infrastructure, a great battle waged between public and private forces to mitigate the impacts of the industrial city. While the public sector expanded its role in the provision city services and regulation of urban space, private forces have also remained, latently exerting their influence. Over the past two decades, with limited economic resources and within a political climate less hospitable to public management, cities have increasingly turned to the private sector to provide subsidized housing, water, sewer and transportation infrastructure, and many core social services. The “public” spaces of the city are increasingly privately financed, built and owned and, especially in Southern California, private communities (gated communities, condominiums, homeowners associations) have become the norm for new housing. Indeed, even planning is now largely a private enterprise – the domain of the consultant. A century later, the great battle between public and private is once again being re-enacted. And the outcome is far from certain.

Volume 13 invites contributions that speak to both the positive and negative impacts of privatization on cities today. While cutting to deeply held positions about the role of the state in society, this volume of Critical Planning aims to assemble a robust collection of articles on both sides in order to critically examine this understudied phenomenon. With its wide reach, privatization touches upon virtually all of the fields of planning – environmental regulation, transportation, housing and economic development, urban design and the built environment, international development and social welfare. Critical Planning also welcomes submissions from other disciplines. Articles may use any method – cases or comparative, historical or contemporary, qualitative or quantitative.

As a peer-reviewed publication, Critical Planning welcomes original, high quality submissions. The Review Board for Volume 13 will bring together UCLA graduate students and leading academics & practitioners whose work speaks directly to the privatization of the city.

Feature article submissions should not exceed 6,000 words. Shorter articles, such as research briefs or student research notes, should not exceed 1,000 words. All submissions should be written according to the standards of the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition. Footnotes should be placed at the end of the document. Please double-space all parts of the manuscript and leave one-inch margins on all sides. Tables and images should be separated from the text. Images should be provided in .TIF format, not exceeding a width of 5 inches and a resolution of 600 dpi (a width of 3000 pixels). Include a cover sheet with the title of the article, the author's name, phone number, email address and a two-sentence biographical statement.

Manuscripts should be submitted in triplicate to:
Critical Planning
C/O Gregory D. Morrow, Editor
UCLA Department of Urban Planning
School of Public Affairs
3250 Public Policy Building
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656
critplan@ucla.edu
The deadline for submission is January 6, 2006.