Write for Planetizen

For over 25 years, Planetizen has been a gathering place for urban and regional planners and related professionals — a place to share news, ideas, analysis and more, by and for planners. We’re grateful for the vast network of planners who collaborate with us to cultivate this vibrant exchange of ideas. 

Who can contribute to Planetizen?

We welcome pitches from urban planners, scholars, and professionals in the fields of design, development, architecture and others that intersect with the world of planning. We also occasionally accept pitches from freelance writers.

What types of content is Planetizen looking for? 

All Planetizen content should speak to our core audience of urban planners and aim to help them keep their finger on the pulse of what is happening in the planning world. With everything we publish we aim to help planners stay informed and understand, interpret and form opinions about the latest current events, ideas, trends and practices in the planning profession. We especially look for:

• Analysis of current events in urban planning. (Example) (800-1200 words)
• Op-eds/commentary on current events in urban planning. (800-1200 words)
• Reviews of new urban planning books, films, documentaries, events, products, etc. (800-1200 words)
• Q+As with prominent members of the planning community. (800-1400 words)
• Feature articles exploring important or interesting topics in urban planning in detail. Typically these feature narrative, interviews, first person accounts and/or in-depth research. They tackle timely topics, urban planning history or other issues interesting or entertaining to urban planners. (1200-2000 words)
• Lists of top things (Ex. Top 10 apps, social media accounts, AI tools, etc for planners) particularly interesting or useful to planners.
• We are also currently looking to build out our systems for publishing more data visualizations, urban planning research, major project profiles and student- and career-oriented content. If you would like to work with us to experiment/build these systems, please contact us!

What do we look for in a pitch? 

• One to two short paragraphs about the idea for your piece, including how you’d like to structure it, why you feel it is timely and fresh and any research, case studies or interviews you plan to pull from. If Planetizen has already covered the topic, please tell us how your piece will differ. You should also tell us which of the above content formats the piece fits. 
• A bit about yourself and your experience/expertise. What makes you the right person to craft this piece? If you have a LinkedIn profile or other website that will help us understand your professional credentials, please include it — this is important!
• Links (ideally three) to your writing samples or portfolio.
• A sense that you are human. We do not allow the use of generative AI in the production of Planetizen content, so please do not use it to generate your pitch. Help us clearly understand your voice. 

Other ways to contribute to Planetizen

Become a columnist

Planetizen has a limited number of dedicated columnists who contribute pieces regularly on a set schedule, usually focused on a particular topic. Columns are typically contributed monthly (sometimes more, sometimes less) and are focused on a planner’s area of expertise. For example, AICP planner and AI specialist Tom Sanchez contributes a monthly column on urban planning and AI, and transit planner Joshua Woods writes about transit. 

If you are interested in becoming a Planetizen columnist, please send us an email following the same pitch formula as above, but focusing on your idea of a cohesive, ongoing column. Please include at least three ideas of specific pieces you would like to write. Ideally, we love to see a sample piece.

Suggest news for us to cover in our feed

The Planetizen newsfeed aggregates stories from across the web that help planners keep abreast of everything important happening in the planning world. The stories are selected, summarized and shared daily by the planning experts on our team. You can help us keep up on the most important news for the planning community by suggesting a story for us to cover in the newsfeed. We look for stories that are occurring at the local, regional and national level that have significance for planners more broadly across the country as they keep up on important projects, trends, laws, ideas or movements. 

Find our newsfeed tip sheet at the bottom of this page, under "How to contact us."

Co-publish with us

We believe in contributing to a thriving ecosystem of urban planning information, and that collaboration benefits everyone. We work with reputable, likeminded publications, publishers and individual creators to amplify valuable content to our audience through co-publishing relationships. If you are a publisher or an urban planning writer with an audience of your own (on social media, SubStack, Medium or elsewhere) that you would like to grow through collaboration with Planetizen, or if you would like to republish Planetizen content on your site, please get in touch. 

Become a Planetizen Courses instructor

We accept applications from planning subject matter experts to teach one-hour Planetizen Courses in the skills and concepts necessary to thrive in planning and related fields. If you have at least 3 years of planning or related experience and are comfortable delivering a presentation in front of a camera in a studio, get in touch. See our Teach for Planetizen page for more information.

Will I get paid? 

Planetizen does not pay urban planning professionals for contributed articles or newsfeed tips, but you will be invited to join our contributor program that allows you to accumulate credits in return for your contributions. These credits can be used toward Planetizen products like Planetizen Courses subscriptions, our popular AICP prep class, advertising space, credit to our store and more.

We have a very limited freelance budget for professional writers (i.e., those for whom writing is their primary source of income). The fee for these contributions is determined on a per-article basis depending on the nature of the assignment and agreed upon with your editor.

Planetizen Courses instructors are paid for their work and receive a stipend to cover their travel to our Los Angeles studio. 

How to contact us

To recommend a story from another publication to feature on the Planetizen newsfeed, please fill out this form. This is the fastest way to suggest a newsfeed story. Due to the speed of turnaround required for the newsfeed, we do not accept newsfeed links via email.

Please direct all other contributor pitches (including columns and co-publishing) to [email protected]. 

Important: as a signal that you’ve read our guidelines, please include 1) an emoji at the start of your email's subject line that is related to urban planning and 2) a one line explanation at the top of your email telling us why you chose that emoji or how it is related to urban planning. Without these indicators, your pitch will be deleted. 

If you are a publicist working with a client who is interested in contributing, please read these guidelines before contacting us.