2017 Brings Changes for JUA

By Igor Vojnovic

Happy New Year!

As we begin 2017, you will notice that the Journal of Urban Affairs has gone through a major transformation. After 18 years with Wiley, the JUA has moved to Taylor & Francis/Routledge (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ujua20/current). The switch culminates a year-and-a-half of work and marks a new era for the JUA. The editorial team is very excited about this move and we have UAA executive director Margaret Wilder and Taylor & Francis/Routledge publisher Jonathan Manley to thank for making it happen. We would also like to acknowledge the folks at Wiley, particularly publisher Caroline McCarley and senior production editor Izzat Ibrahim, for ensuring that production of the JUA flowed so smoothly over these many years.

The JUA’s switch to Taylor & Francis/Routledge brings a number of changes. The journal has been redesigned and will publish eight issues per year instead of five, a 60% increase. The adoption of new RoMEO classification requirements by funding agencies—the result of increasing pressure for more open access that has been diffusing globally—has been reshaping how authors and editors view archiving policies, and the JUA has therefore adopted a more open archiving policy with Taylor & Francis/Routledge. In addition, as with the journal itself, everything has been redesigned behind the scenes, from systems to production.

Over the last year-and-a-half, the JUA editorial team has been committed to increasing the journal’s global presence, and we are now seeing some success thanks to that effort. We have had more than a 60% increase in non-U.S. submissions over the last year. A number of special issues exploring global themes are also in the pipeline and will be coming out in print over the next couple of years. Some of the forthcoming special issues, and their guest editors, include:

Citizens in City Regions, Anders Lidström (Umeå University) and Linze Schaap (Tilburg University)

New Urban Governance, Nuno Ferreira da Cruz, Philipp Rode, and Michael McQuarrie (London School of Economics)

Urban Transformation in Asia and the Pacific Rim: Economic Transitions, Institutions and Development Policies, Cathy Yan Liu (Georgia State University), Bligh Grant (University of Technology Sydney) and Lin Ye (Sun Yat-sen University)

Urban Spectacles and Transformation in Brazil in the wake of Mega-events, Xuefei Ren (Michigan State University)

Rural Migrants in Transitional Chinese Cities: Marginality, Agency, and Social Justice, Shenjing He (The University of Hong Kong), Jun Wang (City University of Hong Kong) and Junxi Qian (University of Edinburgh)

Refugees in the City, Gordana Rabrenovic (Northeastern University) and Nihad Bunar (Stockholm University)

The City in Central and South America, Cecilia Giusti (Texas A&M University) and Lucia Capanema-Alvares (Universidade Federal Fluminense)

Promoting Social Justice and Equity in Shrinking Cities, Robert Mark Silverman (The State University of New York at Buffalo)

Finally, I want to thank all the authors, reviewers, and readers for their support of the JUA. Your time and effort is greatly appreciated by the whole editorial team. It has been your commitment, creativity, and energy that has made the JUA such an exceptional journal. Thank you most sincerely!

This is clearly a very exciting time for the journal! As part of the urban community, I hope that you are all as excited with this transition as we are!

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and productive 2017!

Igor

Igor Vojnovic is Professor of Geography at Michigan State University and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Urban Affairs.