Planning processes guiding sustainable urban futures are typically complex, non-linear and value-laden, but their knowledge dynamics are still not adequately understood. This paper explores the potential of social network analysis (SNA) as a part of mixed-method approach for analysing the dynamic social context of knowledge integration in planning processes. The empirical study uses detailed longitudinal data of a four-year statutory planning process in the Nordic context, providing a methodological contribution for understanding knowledge integration in planning with visual-analytical methods and actor-relational criteria. Findings provide a new understanding of the actual social realities of planning practice and the further conceptualization of situated process dynamics.

In Finland, planning competitions are used as a way to determine alternatives in the early phase of urban planning. However, the traditional jury-based evaluation process is encountering significant opposition as it does not consider the views of local residents. In recent years, methods of web-based evaluation have been developed and tested to register public opinion in several planning competitions. This paper describes how web-based public participation and GIS-based evaluation tools, such as PPGIS (public participation geographic information system) and public evaluation web pages, are utilised in urban planning competitions. The research focus of this paper is on studying how public participation can be arranged in competition processes and how the competitors use the information produced. In addition, we identify issues that can affect the utilisation of the information. Based on two Finnish case studies, this study indicates that web-based tools can augment public participation in various phases of the competition process.

This commentary centres on the questionhow can we further develop the relationship between planning practice and academia? This question has been one of the central pillars of planning scholarship over several decades (Krumholz, 1986), but many would agree that previous arguments have not yet been taken far enough in action. Drawing upon the web of existing arguments for a closer theory-practice relationship, our intent is to unpack additional experiential dimensions of this overarching question that need to be understood in a relational manner. Any such understanding should be placed in the context of non-collaborative pressures in both practice and academia, and open new pathways for understanding structural barriers to their closer collaboration. To this end, we will start by explaining the demanding contexts that planning now faces. We then reflect on how planning in itself is a complex procedural practice. The central premise here is that planning is institutional, but ultimately a human action at its core, that is characterised by psychosocial dynamics that need to be accounted for. Advancing this argument, we will acknowledge previous reflections on psychosocial aspects of planners' everyday. Arguing from inference, we conclude that furthering collaboration between practice and academia will require understanding the diverse and dynamic experiences of planners whose everyday practices are embedded within complex psychosocial processes, distributed across various social networks and time. Bearing in mind these deeper understandings of planning as a complex and deeply emotional practice, we reflect on potential actions for developing co-creation processes that engage both practice and academia. Of Wicked Problems and Planning Complexities In light of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC, 2019), humanity has to face the fact that wicked problems, highlighted decades ago (Rittel & Webber, 1973), still hang above us like Damocles' sword. We live on a limited planet, where resources are often scarce compared to current human needs (Raworth, 2012). Moreover, natural, infrastructural, and technological systems have a large number of interdependent relations, resulting in a non-linear and rapidly changing reality (de Roo & Silva, 2010; Sengupta, Rauws, & de Roo, 2016). At the centre of this existential understanding is the idea that multidimensional human ends are not static and fully defined, and that various groups have different needs, over time. Thus, transitions out of our unsustainable lifestyles require not only changes in the built environment and technological systems but, most importantly, in our behaviours and societal values (Geels, Sovacool, Schwanen, & Sorrell, 2017). However, this state of irreducibly high