Digital Technology Use and Future Expectations

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings

The implications of digital technologies for planning practice are receiving renewed interest in the wake of ever-improving capabilities in Big Data and artificial intelligence, as well as the rapid uptake of new technologies that allowed planners to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this interest, there has been little cross-country comparative research regarding the adoption of technology within the planning profession and even less that addresses planners’ expectations and desires for future digital tools. We undertook a multinational online survey of planners in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand to gain a comprehensive understanding of current and expected future use of data and software in planning practice. Although the current use of data-intensive digital tools was limited, we found widespread expectations of change across the planning profession. Remarkable similarities were observed across the countries surveyed. The biggest differences in tech use were among planners undertaking strategic, specialist, and regulatory roles.

Takeaway for practice

Planning organizations around the world should prepare for a new wave of digital change as many technical obstacles that previously hindered the rapid exchange and analysis of vast amounts of data have now been overcome. Continued development of digital skills among planners is important but should be paired with career pathways for digital specialists within the profession. Planners should not complacently assume that adopting digital technologies will automatically lead to more effective and equitable planning outcomes. They should use digital processes to actively address biases in the underlying planning system.

Keywords:

• digital planning
• ePlanning
• Planning 3.0
• PlanTech
• urban analytics

A new wave of interest in the application of digital technologies in planning practice is emerging around the world. Ever-improving digital capabilities make collection, storage, analysis, and visualization of vast amounts of data both easier and more affordable. In the past 2 years several reports on the topic have been released by planning organizations internationally (e.g., Batty & Yang, 2022; Planning Institute of Australia, 2021). In the United States, the 2023 Trend Report for Planners published by the APA and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy featured several tech-related trends, with the “Digital Era” rated as a trend “we need to act on now” (Hurtado et al., 2023, p. 15).

Although new digital technologies have far-reaching implications for the eventual shape of places subject to planning, we look inward to examine the implications for professional planning activities across a variety of sectors. From artificial intelligence (AI) automation of administrative work to urban digital twins, new data-intensive digital technologies have the potential to significantly disrupt current practices. Relatively little up-to-date information exists, however, regarding the actual adoption of technology in planning practice and the aspirations of professional planners. Most new digital technology has been developed for diverse purposes by the information technology industry, and research is required to understand the implications and potentials for planning practice and to align investment in training and new technologies.

We investigated the perspectives of professional planners regarding the implementation of digital technology in practice across Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, and Canada. We sought information about software and data used by planners in their day-to-day practice. Here we report the findings of one of the largest and widest-ranging technology adoption surveys in recent years, allowing direct comparison between planners in different countries. The study had the following objectives:

• To update baseline information on the type of software and data tools adopted by practicing planners

• To compare the adoption of software and data tools by practicing planners across multiple countries

• To characterize the desired digital skills and preferred learning channels of practicing planners

• To characterize planners’ perspectives on expected and desired digital change

• To evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the adoption of software and data tools in planning practice

First, we provide a summary of existing literature related to the adoption of digital technology by planners. Despite a tradition of research into the design of new digital tools for planning, past surveys have found limited uptake in practice. We then outline the methodology for the development and distribution of the survey and the methods used to analyze the data collected. The Results section provides a summary of the survey findings with subheadings broadly aligned to the objectives listed above. The discussion then follows. The results indicated continued low use of planning-specific digital tools but high expectations of future change. Differences were observed between descriptions of anticipated and desired changes. Anticipated changes emphasized both data insights and improving efficiencies of day-to-day work, although desired changes predominantly focused on efficiencies. Remarkably similar trends were observed in the use of software tools across the surveyed countries, although data use indicated different policy objectives. These findings can inform preparations for digital transformation in planning organizations everywhere and point to a role for digital planning specialists. Anticipated and desired changes were nevertheless shown to largely reinforce current practices. Adoption of new technology should therefore be accompanied by broader measures to address biases in underlying planning systems.

Background

Waves of Interest in Computing and Planning

This new wave of interest in the application of digital technology to planning practice is, of course, only the latest in a long history of such waves of activity and scholarship dating back to the initial commercially available computers in the 1950s (Figure 1). Interest began with large urban modeling exercises on mainframe computers (Harris, 1965), followed by adoption of personal computing and access to geographic information systems (GIS; Innes & Simpson, 1993; Klosterman & Landis, 1988), and ePlanning, with support from a widespread adoption of the internet (Anttiroiko, 2014; Silva, 2010). These waves have been well documented in the literature (Batty, 2021, 2014; Klosterman, 2012).¹

Figure 1. Waves of interest in the application of new digital technologies in planning practice.

Underlying the most recent wave are improvements to technology that made it feasible to digitize, share, access, and analyze planning information to a degree beyond the scope of previous imagination (Hersperger & Fertner, 2021). This has equipped planners with tools to address urban issues in contexts, such as climate change, of increased complexity and unpredictability (Batty & Yang, 2022). Now, the lines between software systems are blurred. Nothing stands alone, and the internet acts as a global information-sharing platform upon which AI or other software capabilities can be built (Geertman & Stillwell, 2020). PlanTech is a recent term used to refer to these capabilities that, when applied to planning, “aims to revolutionise the urban planning industry across public, private and not for profit sectors using advanced technologies to improve the efficiency of operations and decision making” (Devlin, 2020, p. 59).

Studies of the Use of Technology by Practicing Planners

Reviews of the urban technology literature have demonstrated that this new wave of interest has been accompanied by exponential growth in research output in areas such as smart cities, urban analytics, and digital twins (Daniel & Pettit, 2022; Mora et al., 2019). The bulk of this research has been geared toward developing new tools and algorithms that test the limits of new sources of data and ever-improving digital capabilities. Although this research has been focused on the development of technologies devised to aid city planning, few recent studies have examined their level of adoption in planning practice.

The last time the adoption of digital technologies into planning practice was widely canvassed in planning literature was in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, advances in personal computing made GIS accessible to regular planners. Excitement about its potential to change planning practice led to the publication of many case studies and surveys tracking levels of adoption (e.g., French & Wiggins, 1989; Gilfoyle & Wong, 1998; Gill et al., 1999). By 2010, according to Göçmen and Ventura (2010), GIS was widespread in planning practice as a tool for information storage and retrieval, although its full analytical capabilities remained underused.

Since the wave of interest in GIS in the 1990s, studies into technology adoption have tended to be less focused and have addressed diverse technologies, including the following:

• Social media (e.g., Bonsón et al., 2019; Fredericks & Foth, 2013; Williamson & Parolin, 2013a)

• Mobile technologies (e.g., Houghton et al., 2014)

• Planning support systems (e.g., Russo et al., 2018; Williamson & Parolin, 2013b)

• 3D visual media (e.g., Kitchin et al., 2021)

• Digital community engagement platforms (e.g., Wilson & Tewdwr-Jones, 2022)

• AI (e.g., Hollander et al., 2023; Sanchez et al., 2023)

• Smart cities technologies (Meenar & Afzalan, 2023)

Findings have revealed limited use of the more complex or novel computing technologies. Such implementation gaps have long been observed (e.g., Pelzer, 2017; Vonk et al., 2005). Proffered reasons have included poor user interface design and insufficient consideration of contextual factors.

As standalone software systems have become more integrated, the need to develop a broader understanding of the adoption of digital technology in planning practice has grown. The few published empirical studies have covered relatively small areas such as South Wales in the United Kingdom (Friel et al., 2022), the United Kingdom (Batty & Yang, 2022), and New South Wales in Australia (Daniel & Pettit, 2021), making it hard to compare between different jurisdictions. In addition, most of these studies focused only on the contemporary adoption of technology. Though the study by Daniel and Pettit (2021) also addressed expectations of future digital changes, it provided a less than comprehensive view of the changes prioritized by planners.

In addition, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the adoption of digital technologies in planning practice should not be overlooked. Technology allowing remote work and virtual collaboration, including engagement with residents, rapidly became a necessity over the long periods of quarantine measures. Although it will take many years to judge the full extent of the influence of COVID-19 on long-term planning practice, some have predicted that remote working practices will remain a common feature of professional work (Barrero et al., 2021). In the planning context, some of the most pressing questions relate to the effectiveness of digital forms of community engagement that replaced in-person events. Some studies have concluded that virtual meetings (or synchronous online participation technology) were a viable form of participation during the pandemic (Milz & Gervich, 2021; Milz et al., 2023; Mualam et al., 2022). Others, studying attendance at such meetings, warned that they do not solve the ongoing problem of low participation by disadvantaged and minority groups, despite involving less travel (Einstein et al., 2022). Use of social media platforms such as Twitter (rebranded as X in 2023) for resident engagement has led to varying levels of engagement, depending in part on the topic or platform (Bonsón et al., 2019; Haro-de-Rosario et al., 2018). Our survey asked planners, across multiple countries, about their perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 on the adoption of digital technology.

Perspectives on the Technical Skills Required by Practicing Planners

Like studies of technology adoption, practical questions of what computing skills planners should acquire were last widely addressed in the 1980s and 1990s. French and Wiggins (1989) noted a mismatch between planning degrees, which tended to emphasize analytical skills, and professional practice, where computers were being used primarily for information management. They outlined the case for training specialists in both planning and information management to bridge the gap. In the next decade, the focus shifted specifically to GIS applications. Scholars increasingly emphasized the need for GIS skills to be taught using planning-specific content (Drummond, 1995; Godschalk & McMahon, 1992; Montagu, 2001). A recent study by Kontokosta (2021) outlined a case for creating specialists in both planning and data science to encourage the use of data-intensive digital tools. Despite these calls, empirical research into the demand for planning skills has found that more quantitative skills are taught in planning programs than are demanded in planning practice. The latter tends to favor graduates with generalist skills (Greenlee et al., 2015).

Theoretical Debates on the Influence of Technology

In addition to these debates on required skills, each wave of interest in digital technology has been accompanied by lively discussion about the potential of the technology to fundamentally transform planning practice. The transformative visions broadly emphasize either the rational or the communicative process model of planning. Those on the rational side emphasize the possibilities of a more scientific and evidence-based approach to planning (Batty, 2013) through data collection, analysis, and advanced computer modeling. However, this vision has been also heavily criticized in planning literature, in each successive digital wave, as overly technocratic and involving black-box forms of governance (Kitchin, 2016; Klosterman, 1987; Lee, 1973).

Those on the communicative side have emphasized the power of internet-based technologies to enable new forms of communication, co-design, and community empowerment. These possibilities are the focus of successive theoretical frameworks posed by scholars and labeled Planning 2.0 and Planning 3.0 (Anttiroiko, 2014, 2012; Potts, 2020). Others have nevertheless questioned both visions of technology-led transformation, arguing that the adoption of new technology tends to translate or even reinforce the status quo (e.g., Kraemer & King, 2003; Norris & Reddick, 2013). Our survey provides valuable empirical evidence from which to examine these differing perspectives.

Methods

Selection of Participating Countries

A call for participation was distributed through the Global Planners Network made up of spatial planning institutes and organizations from around the globe. The call was distributed on behalf of the researchers by a leader at one of the institutes and answered by the Anglophone Five nations of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries represent most of the network’s founding and most active members.

Few previous studies have examined inter-country differences in the adoption of digital technology in planning. Despite strong cultural and diplomatic ties among the Anglophone Five, we hypothesized that there would be some variation of results stemming from differences in underlying approaches to planning. Following the model of Carmona et al. (2003), each approach can be broadly categorized on a spectrum. At one end are plan-led discretionary systems such as that of the United Kingdom, which rely on national and local planning policies containing descriptive objectives to guide the location and form of new development. On the other end are regulatory (zoning) systems common in the United States, which feature more prescriptive and quantifiable rules and development codes. On this spectrum Canada, Australia, and New Zealand fall somewhere in between, combining elements of both approaches. Similarly, differences in results were anticipated for the United States as the only country that is not a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a political association of member states that are former territories of the British Empire.

Survey Distribution

The online survey was primarily advertised through the e-mail channels of the professional planning institutes and associations of each of the countries. In Australia and New Zealand, recruitment was made through a personalized invitation sent to each member of the respective institutes. For the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom, advertisements were included, two or three times during the survey period, among other announcements in regular e-mail digests of each of the organizations. This achieved a lower overall response rate than the personalized invitations. The survey was additionally promoted on social media through dedicated Twitter and LinkedIn channels. These were then shared by the research team and professional institutes, along with other interested organizations and individuals. The survey was live for a period of 6 months between November 2021 and April 2022. Table 1 reports the number of responses received from each country. For consistency, only complete responses were used in the analysis.

Table 1 Number of responses received by country.

Country	Responses
	Complete	Partial^a
United States	67	21
Canada	91	23
United Kingdom	58	40
Australia	170	54
New Zealand	157	55
Total	543	193

Note: a. Partial responses were those that left the survey window before submitting the main components of the survey. The open-ended nature of the opening survey questions meant that the exclusion of partial responses made a minor, but nonsignificant, difference to the overall results.

The demographic characteristics of the respondents from each country were largely comparable with available membership data of the respective professional organizations. Slightly more responses were received from men than from women in all countries except New Zealand, which had a larger proportion of women as members. A relatively larger number of responses was received from more experienced planners. Stratified sampling was not feasible for this study,² and differences in response sizes between countries and demographic groups were instead accounted for in the statistical analysis as described below. A full breakdown of the demographic characteristics of the respondents is provided in the Technical Appendix.

Questionnaire Design

A range of multiple-choice, 5-point scale, and short-answer questions addressed planners’ use of software and data, anticipated changes, expectations of the future, and barriers to the implementation of new technology. The full questionnaire is available in the Technical Appendix. It was based on a previous survey by Daniel and Pettit (2021). Additional questions addressed the priorities of planners in adopting new technologies and the impact of COVID-19 on the digitalization of work. Adjustments were also made to ensure terminology could be understood in all the target countries.

Analysis

We first analyzed the results using simple descriptive statistical methods. Additional tests for differences between subgroups of respondents were undertaken based on demographic factors such as country, gender, years of experience, and job type. Chi-square tests were used for answers to multiple-choice questions. Because answers to 5-point scale questions tended to exhibit a non-normal distribution, the non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare differences between subgroups on these scales. Kruskal-Wallis tests were used where there were more than two groups. Further, we used multiple correspondence analysis to identify similarities between groups of respondents in their use of software. All statistical analyses were conducted in R (R Core Team, 2022).

Given the variation in response rates between countries, statistical significance was used to identify differences in the adoption of technology. Where the group size for a given country or demographic was small, larger differences were needed for statistical significance. The degree of statistical significance of intercountry differences is indicated in the figures displayed here. The Results section reports mainly demographic differences; results relating to other variables are included in the Technical Appendix for the benefit of future surveys.

Figure 2. “What type of software, web or phone applications do you use in your current role?” Software use reported by survey respondents, including statistical significance of intercountry variation.

Figure 3. “What is the name of the software or application?” Diagram showing planning, spatial, or data analysis software packages named by respondents. Larger nodes and links indicate higher usage, with software located in the center of the diagram used by planners in multiple countries.

Figure 4. “What type of data do you refer to in your current role?” Data use reported by survey respondents, including statistical significance of intercountry variation.

Figure 5. “How do you work with data in your role?” Data access arrangements reported by survey respondents including statistical significance of intercountry variations.

Responses to short-answer questions were categorized with the assistance of NVivo software (Lumivero, 2020). Each question was analyzed separately except for the three future-focused questions, which were combined to allow comparison between perceptions of expected changes, desired changes, and desired skills. Responses were inductively coded for each question and then iteratively consolidated into the themes described and analyzed below and in the Technical Appendix. Reponses to these questions tended to be brief, and we therefore used small q thematic analysis, with most responses assigned to themes in their entirety based on semantic rather than latent reading of the text (Kidder & Fine, 1987).

Limitations

Our data came only from Anglophone countries, which may have limited the generalizability of our findings. Sample sizes also differed, with the more numerous responses from Australia and New Zealand likely to be more reliable. We see the overall and intercountry trends as reliable, but more nuanced intracountry differences were less robust for the countries with low response rates. In addition, responses came predominantly from members of professional institutes and may differ from the wider population of planners. Recruitment through self-selection may have resulted in more responses from individuals with a relatively higher interest in—and thus use of—digital technology. The findings were also only a snapshot in the context of rapidly changing digital technology. Recent development, such as the release of ChatGPT, which provides mainstream access to powerful AI models capable of generating human-like text (OpenAI, 2022), may further change planners’ behaviors and perceptions. In an era of rapid change, the baseline provided by this survey should be supplemented at regular intervals to track emerging trends.

Results

Current State of Affairs in Use of Software and Data Tools

The responses to multiple-choice questions about software use indicated that adoption of new digital tools has remained limited across all surveyed countries. Many of the more data-intensive technologies of popular research interest (e.g., digital twins, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence) had low levels of use in practice (Figure 2). As in previous surveys, we found that planners relied mostly on general office software that is common to many professional roles. Among more discipline-specific software, only online mapping and GIS were found to have widespread application.

Additional questions asking participants to name the software they use revealed a market dominated by a small number of global platforms. Excluding general office software, Figure 3 shows that Google and Esri products were used by most planners. Beyond this, there were large numbers of bespoke mapping platforms, data portals, community consultation applications, and administration systems relevant to individual planning authorities, each used by a small number of planners.

Although software usage was found to be relatively similar across surveyed countries, there was a marked difference in the type of data planners used. These differences were likely reflective of different underlying policy priorities and responsibilities of planners in each country (Figure 4).

Degree of Technical Specialization within the Planning Profession

Figure 5 shows that most GIS and analytical work was likely to be undertaken by specialist data practitioners rather than planners themselves. However, outsourcing of technical work was not universal. Multiple correspondence analysis of similarities in software use between respondents provided an estimate of the degree to which technical specialization has occurred within the planning profession. This analysis reveals two main dimensions relating to software use in planning.

• Dimension 1 indicated that between 7% (factor scores >0.5) and 15% (factor scores >0.3) of respondents were digital specialists likely to use a wide range of statistical and spatial software, including programming languages. These planners were acting in a variety of roles but tended to be in more specialized sectors such as transport, infrastructure, or economic planning.

• Dimension 2 indicated separation between planners who used software for development regulation and permit processes and those who did not. This distinction was somewhat greater in Australia, where qualified planners are employed to assess individual development proposals, whereas in North American countries, this work tends to be left to specialist building certifiers.

Further details of the multiple correspondence analysis can be found in the Technical Appendix.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Adoption of Digital Technologies

Despite vast differences in the length of time pandemic stay-at-home requirements were in place in each country (Hale et al., 2021), planners from all countries reported that COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of certain digital technologies. Responses showed that most planners were now set up to work from home:

Meetings are significantly more effective when held virtually: Small meetings can be easily accommodated; large meetings you can still participate or ask a question. [Australian survey respondent]

COVID has resulted in substantial changes in the way I work. I work from home most of the time. The organization has supported this by providing good technology such as being able to access data files, updated software to carry out econometric/statistical analysis. Having Teams and Zoom [conferencing software] facilitates virtual meeting and keeps me in contact with people both internally and externally. [Canadian survey respondent]

Beyond the adoption of technologies to assist with remote work (e.g., virtual meeting software and shared drives), there was little evidence of transformational change in the use of more specialist software. On the other hand, COVID-19 clearly affected community engagement, with many activities moved online. However, online engagement was generally facilitated by standard conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, and by management of community submissions through websites rather than by adopting specialist community consultation software and interactive tools.

Figure 6. Distribution of responses to rank-scale questions regarding change and change preparedness including intercountry variation (not found to be statistically significant).

Most respondents, across all countries, indicated that this type of digital technology can improve community engagement. A total of 75% of responses described positive changes, especially the inclusion of people who otherwise cannot travel to an in-person event, whether they are time poor or require assistance with physical access. However, downsides were also reported; 45% of responses described fear of excluding those with limited digital access or ability or decreased quality of interpersonal interactions. Many concluded that digital channels were a welcome addition but that they should form only one of a variety of engagement methods. Only 5% of respondents specifically reported that the move to digital engagement had resulted in greater participation.

What Planners Anticipate and Desire from Future Change

Respondents in all countries anticipated a moderate to large degree of technology-induced change, for which they felt moderately well prepared (Figure 6). Variation in perceived preparedness was evident between groups of planners. Those with more technical experience (e.g., programming or database management) predicted a greater degree of change and felt more prepared. Those with less than 10 years of experience reported feeling more prepared for change (average 3.4/5) and gave their communities and collaborators a relatively higher score (2.7/5).

The survey also provided space for respondents to describe the changes they anticipated, the changes they would make to technology if given the opportunity, and the training they would undertake. Their descriptions of anticipated and desired futures had three main themes:

• Data: Planners had ready access to large amounts of high-quality data with fine spatial and temporal resolution to inform their work. Examples include the use of AI for data collection and increased use of 3D modeling and digital twins.

• Efficiency: Planning information was digitized, and integrated digital systems were set up to streamline and even automate aspects of professional planning work. Examples include automated permitting processes and integrated software.

• Collaboration: Digital technology allowed for improved communication and collaboration across distances. Examples include interactive planning documents and digital systems for policy co-creation.

The frequency of these themes among the responses provides insights into the technological priorities of planners (Figure 7). The data and efficiency themes had equal prominence in anticipated futures, but office efficiencies dominated the changes planners themselves would make if given the opportunity. Although efficiency may be a pressing issue, this result may also reflect perceptions of roles and scopes, especially because specialists undertook most of the analytical work (Figure 5). Desired training, on the other hand, most frequently related to data skills. Collaboration was consistently the least mentioned theme, suggesting that novel technologies for community engagement were yet to capture the imagination of mainstream planners.

Although the general pattern shown in Figure 7 held true for all countries surveyed, there were differences in the strengths of the themes. Notably, a greater proportion of respondents from Canada imagined future use of technology for collaboration and community engagement. Other minor themes related to priorities and challenges faced by planners, including desire for more training and for procedural improvements to the technology adoption process.

Figure 7. Comparison of common themes identified in short answer responses to questions: 1) “Please describe any changes you anticipate from digital technology,” 2) “If it was your decision, what changes would you make to technology use in your workplace and why?,” 3) “Your workplace is allocating time and money to improve the digital skills of employees. If it was your decision, what would your team learn and why?”

Barriers to Digital Innovation

Respondents were asked to rate the perceived impact of common barriers to the implementation of digital technology in planning practice. As in past studies, cost was consistently ranked as the biggest barrier (Figure 8). In all countries, public-sector planners saw each barrier as having a higher impact, relative to private-sector planners, on their work.

Figure 8. On a scale from 1 to 5, please rate the impact of the following common barriers to the adoption of technology in your workplace. Distribution of scores showing 1) intercountry variation and 2) public/private-sector comparison.

An additional barrier, which we labeled coordination, emerged from related short answers. Beyond issues of technical interoperability with legacy systems, this barrier reflects the difficulties of organizations working together, either internally with separate information technology teams or between organizations:

A lot of money, time and energy is spent creating data management systems that are needed by all local government organisations in my country, yet everyone has a different system that is costly, a lot of duplication of effort for little gain. [New Zealand survey respondent]

Though coordination has always been a challenge, this issue may have become more prominent because improvements to internet connectivity have raised expectations of efficient information sharing, even as data are increasingly produced in decentralized locations.

Channels for Learning about New Digital Innovations

To determine the most useful means for the diffusion of ideas, respondents were asked to rank various channels for learning about the latest developments in planning (Figure 9). The results again show similarities across countries. Social media platforms ranked relatively low, despite their prominence in conversations on research and engagement. Differences in the relative importance of the various media do exist between subgroups of respondents. Respondents with more than 10 years of experience prioritized professional newsletters, whereas those with less than 10 years prioritized postgraduate studies. Those with technical experience, such as GIS, programming, or database management, were more likely to use sources outside of the workplace, including postgraduate studies, to keep up with developments.

Figure 9. “Based on your personal usage, drag and drop the following items to rate how important the following sources are for you to keep up with the latest developments in planning.” Distribution of rank scores showing intercountry variation.

Discussion

Limited Adoption of New Technologies

The results of this study show that there was still limited adoption of planning-specific or data-intensive digital tools in all surveyed countries. Digital city twins and virtual and augmented reality are clear examples. Although the idea of using 3D spatial media for planning has long been discussed in the literature, scholarly interest in the development of digital twins has been especially strong in the last 5 years (Daniel & Pettit, 2022). These platforms integrate 3D visualization capabilities with real-time data streams and allow users various levels of interactivity and immersion. Though some experimentation with such technology is evident in survey responses, these efforts have yet to translate to mainstream practice. The findings of a smaller interview study by Kitchin et al. (2021) documented ongoing challenges to the adoption of 3D spatial media for planning in Ireland. These challenges were also evident in our target countries. They included the high cost of obtaining and maintaining high-quality 3D data sets, lack of training, and lack of tools tailored for either the strategic planning or development compliance tasks that make up much of day-to-day planning work. This continued to apply to other specialized software tools including planning support systems and interactive digital community engagement platforms with long noted implementation gaps (e.g., Pelzer, 2017; Wilson & Tewdwr-Jones, 2022).

Similar Tools but Different Policy Challenges

Despite anticipating intercountry variation, we found few significant differences by country in the adoption, or the barriers to adoption, of digital technology in planning. Observed differences were more closely correlated to role or specialization, an indication that the day-to-day work of planners was similar across the countries surveyed. The global dominance of a small number of software platforms demonstrated in Figure 3 was another likely contributing factor. Software markets are well known to exhibit extreme concentration due to a number of unique winner-takes-all characteristics. Among these characteristics are extreme economies of scale, high switching costs, and a recursive relationship between the number of users and the quality of the software because of the data (often automatically) generated through use (Barwise & Watkins, 2018).

More significant variations were found in the type of data planners used, reflecting known differences in local environmental conditions and policy priorities. The United States has a relatively greater focus on economic matters such as business and real estate. Canada, on the other hand, has greater use of community engagement and social media data, suggesting that public engagement is of greater importance in day-to-day work. The relatively greater use of data related to natural hazards by New Zealand planners reflects the country’s overall seismic vulnerability. Unsurprisingly, planners in countries once subject to European colonization referred to data related to First Nations or Indigenous people to a greater extent than the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, significant variation between these countries shows that responsibility for, or prioritization of, First Nations issues is greater in some planning systems than others. Further research would be required to determine how standard digital tools are adapted to local needs and policy priorities. Despite such differences, data related to regulation, property, and development remain core to planners across all countries surveyed.

Growing Demand for Data-Related Skills

Although the results confirm widespread continuation of well-known implementation gaps, responses indicated that these may not all persist indefinitely. Few previous studies have sought planners’ perspectives on their future use of technology, and ours is the first large-scale survey asking planners to describe both expected and desired future changes. Data analytics and visualization tools featured prominently in both anticipated and desired changes, indicating improving prospects for planners’ adoption of data-intensive digital tools.

Data-related competencies were the most prominent theme in respondents’ descriptions of desired technical skills. This suggested an increase in demand for quantitative skills since the surveys by Greenlee et al. (2015) indicated overprovision of quantitative skills in planning programs. Multiple correspondence analysis showed that there was already a subgroup of digital specialists within the planning profession. The prominence of data-related themes in respondents’ descriptions of the future supported arguments that data specialists will have an increasingly important role to play (Batty & Yang, 2022; Kontokosta, 2021). Such specialists rate channels outside of the workplace, including graduate study, as relatively more important for learning than do other planners. This indicates good prospects for graduate programs in urban data science, a relatively new program offered at only a few universities across the surveyed countries.³ Although postgraduate programs provide a good foundation for specialist education, with technology ever evolving, planning organizations will also need to increase provision of technical training. This will be especially important in organizations with few specialist digital planners for others to learn from.

Prioritization of Productivity-Enhancing Technologies

Despite the growing availability of data-related technologies, the changes respondents themselves would make tended to be aimed primarily at improving office productivity. This has been long noted in the planning and technology literature (see Klosterman & Landis, 1988), and our findings aligned with those of past surveys showing that most planners rely on general software common to many professional roles, such as word processing, rather than specialist planning applications (Batty & Yang, 2022; Daniel & Pettit, 2021). This long-established trend has, however, been widely overlooked in the continued focus on training for spatial and urban analytics (Godschalk & McMahon, 1992; Kontokosta, 2021; Montagu, 2001). This issue gains additional relevance as regulatory systems that occupy much practical planning work are increasingly digitized. Education focused on understanding the principles underpinning computational reasoning and AI tools may be increasingly beneficial for planners in administrative and regulatory roles. These trends nevertheless raise questions regarding the extent to which automation will affect the profession and the continued relevance of planning work. With few existing studies relevant to planning practice, this is an important area for future research.

Balancing Tensions between Rational and Communicative Approaches to Planning: Planners’ Experience with COVID-19

Our findings about the influence of digital technology on promoting more technocratic or more communicative modes of planning were mixed. In our survey, community engagement did not feature large in anticipated or desired digital changes. It also had the least priority among new digital skills. It may be that planners do not see technology as a limitation to community engagement. It is more likely, however, that this reflects underlying priorities and power structures in which community engagement is only a small part of most planning processes.

When asked specifically, most planners agreed that digital channels improve access to, and involvement in, the planning process. Questions about the effectiveness of digital technology for community engagement have come to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reported prominence of virtual meetings provides broad empirical evidence for the conclusions of Milz et al. (2021, 2023) that online meetings are a viable alternative to in-person public engagements. Although respondents generally perceived virtual meetings to be more accessible, only a small number reported that digital collaboration and engagement activities had resulted in greater rates of participation. These findings are compatible with more targeted studies showing similarly low participation of people from minority or disadvantaged backgrounds in virtual meetings when compared with those held in person before the COVID-19 pandemic (Einstein et al., 2022). Together, these findings cast doubt on suggestions by scholars that increased digitalization will, in some automatic way, shape a new collaborative planning paradigm (Anttiroiko, 2014; Potts, 2020).

Conclusion

Our survey has provided an up-to-date overview of the use of, and future expectations for, digital technology in planning. This will help practitioners to assess current capabilities and plan for change. The research has shown that although planners were expecting substantial change, adoption of the latest wave of technologies was still in early days across all countries surveyed. The promise of fully digital planning practice remains elusive. Further surveys should be undertaken at regular intervals to track these trends, particularly given the rising potential of AI in planning (Son et al., 2023) and the increasing interest in AI-generated content following the release of ChatGPT and similar platforms since our survey period ended (Daniel, 2023).

As planners think about future changes, data loom large, and our results have shown that there are already digital specialists within the planning profession. Although resources will be required to improve data and digital skills, in the near term, training and career pathways should be enabling the digital specialists required for planning work. Despite the perceived importance of quality data, we found that for many planners, data technologies are second in priority to technologies likely to improve office efficiencies and automate bureaucratic work. Training in AI and other tools with the potential to revolutionize regulatory and administrative work may well provide the greatest benefits to these planners.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a lasting impact on planning practice and its relationship to technology. Results confirmed that most planners are now set up to work remotely, and they reported much greater acceptance of technology in formal consultation processes. Despite this, further innovation in digital community consultation does not feature prominently in planners’ imagined future practice, casting doubts on suggestions that improvements to technology will inherently lead to more collaborative and responsive planning (Anttiroiko, 2012, 2014; Potts, 2020). These findings demonstrate a need for planners to be actively involved in the digitalization process. The profession needs to go beyond simply implementing the technology to automate existing processes. It needs to actively reimagine the planning processes themselves to achieve more collaborative and effective outcomes.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2023.2253295.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire Daniel

CLAIRE DANIEL ([email protected]) is a Scientia PhD Scholar in the City Futures Research Center at the University of New South Wales.

Elizabeth Wentz

ELIZABETH WENTZ ([email protected]) is vice provost and dean at Arizona State University.

Petra Hurtado

PETRA HURTADO ([email protected]) is the director of research and foresight at the American Planning Association.

Wei Yang

WEI YANG ([email protected]) is Chair at Wei Yang and Partners.

Christopher Pettit

CHRISTOPHER PETTIT ([email protected]) is the director of the City Futures Research Center at the University of New South Wales.

Notes

1 It is interesting to note that there have been other much vaunted technological improvements that failed to capture the imagination of the planning profession. The most notable of these in recent years is the concept of smart cities, about which urban planners have been notably silent (Karvonen et al., 2020; Meenar & Afzalan, 2023; Townsend, 2014).

2 Stratified sampling was also deemed unlikely to accurately account for inherent differences between planning systems and cultures in different countries that may influence the demographic and professional makeup of institutes and associations.

3 The MSc in Smart Cities and Urban Analytics (now MSc Urban Spatial Science) at University College London in the United Kingdom and the MS in Urban Informatics at Northwestern University in Evanston (IL) are among the earliest examples of such degree programs across the surveyed countries, established in 2014 and 2015, respectively.