Planning and the High-Rise Neighbourhood: Debates on Vertical Cities

Abstract

This editorial introduces the thematic issue on “Vertical Cities: The Development of High-Rise Neighbourhoods.” It outlines the lack of understanding about high-rise development in cities around the world and argues for a continued need to further interrogate concepts of verticality beyond single towers and towards a finer grain examination of high-rise neighbourhoods. The editorial introduces four interconnected themes that begin to address this phenomenon—socio-demographic challenges, planning discourses, high-rise legacies, and alternative conceptions of verticality—and highlights how the various articles in this thematic issue explore these critical areas of enquiry. It concludes with a call for future research to delve deeper into the planning challenges presented by high-rise neighbourhoods in the 21st-century city and, critically, the contribution that high-rise urban form makes to urban sustainability.