Charting the past and possible futures of planning support systems: Results of a citation network analysis

Abstract

Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the possibilities of digital technology to assist with urban planning, spurred by increased digitisation of planning work, and ever improving data availability and processing capabilities. Hidden behind recent developments is over 30 years of research and development by scholars in the field of Planning Support Systems (PSS), although to date there have been few attempts to systematically characterise their output or achievements. This paper reports on the results of a citation network analysis (CNA) on the PSS literature contained within the Scopus database, a systematic method to describe the overall structure of the field, mapping out of key research streams and how they change over time. The analysis reveals 27 distinct research streams under four themes, split between technical and applied research. There is strong evidence of a field still clearly defined by its roots in comprehensive software systems used for scenario and land use planning although shifting over time from a focus on the development of modelling techniques to applied research and case studies in the use of applications. Research output has remained steady in the context of exponential growth in related literature including smart cities, urban science and urban analytics. These findings support calls for a refreshed approach to the field as planning support science and the map produced by this analysis provides a valuable framework to navigate past research efforts to inform a new era of digital planning efforts.