The Western Planner (WP) encourages subscribers, readers, and others to submit articles and columns for publication in our eJournal. Please follow the article guidelines listed below.

General Guidelines

All articles should be submitted to WP Editor: editor@westernplanner.org. The WP welcomes quality practical articles written by planners, for planners. WP does not pay for articles. Articles submitted to WP may be eligible for AICP CM credits.

Articles should have a widespread applicability to the West, be interesting, offer solutions, and provide ideas to connect planners, the public, elected officials, and the development community. Western Planner strongly favors applied, practical, hands-on content. The Western Planner focuses on issues facing practicing planners, citizen planners, and planner advocates in the Western United States, with emphasis on rural, county and small towns. We encourage articles on planning topics which affect these audiences, including the following broad planning topics: land use and zoning; housing, subdivisions, and affordability; tribal land use & planning; planning law and legal issues; GIS & mapping; county and regional planning; public lands planning; public engagement; planning ethics; planning history; transportation planning; recreation planning; main street/downtown issues; historic preservation; water management planning; hazard mitigation and recovery planning; planning in context of extractive industries; sustainability/resilience; infill, redevelopment and revitalization; environmental planning; food systems planning; community/economic development; capital asset planning; career development. These are broad, but please contact the editor on other topics.

We strongly encourage footnotes and references to external materials. Generally, articles should be from 500–2000 words. Authors, please submit a brief (2-3 sentence) professional biography to accompany your article.

Submission of an article to WP implies that the material has not been published before and that this article has not been simultaneously submitted to any other publication outlet unless previously agreed upon. If it has been previously published, please provide proof of authorization to republish with the submission.

SUBMISSION CALENDAR (2023/2024)

Articles will be collected on a rolling monthly basis on the 15th of each month. Articles will be collected, compiled and published as determined by the editor based on topic. Publication topics are decided on an ongoing basis, with the exception of each October providing a recap of the annual conference and each November being the Tribal and Indigenous Planning issue.

Types of Articles Accepted

  • Make sure the article has widespread applicability to the West, is interesting, solutions are offered, and that it provides ideas for bringing together planners, the public, elected officials, and the development community. Please follow the submission guidelines below. WP does not publish every article that is submitted and does not pay for articles at this time. Some articles are not a good fit for the WP either because of content or substandard writing.

    FEATURE ARTICLE

    Topic: Feature articles should be articles about successful planning techniques and projects that work or may work in the West, and address the problems Western Planners face.

    Length: A good length for a feature article is around 1,200 – 2,000 words.

    Requirements: Need (1) a short author bio; (2) citations if necessary; (3) suggested headline; (4) suggested resources, books and/or websites for help on the topic

    Photos/ Graphics: Photos/graphics must include a cutline and photo credit. You must have permission to publish them.

    Hyperlinks: We encourage adding references and hyperlinks to additional resource materials.

  • Connect with planners from across the West. Follow the instructions below.

    Describe your current job. Please include your title and years of service.

    What did you want to be when you grew up?

    How did you get into the planning profession? Describe your planning background and education.

    Describe a mentor or someone you admire that has had an impact on your career.

    What advice would you give someone just starting out in their career? What do you wish you’d have known when you were starting out?

    Why do you belong to the Western Planner? Why/how is the Western Planner valuable to you as a planner?

    Send us 1-2 photos of yourself

    Other questions to consider

    Describe the biggest obstacle you had to overcome in planning or life. How did you overcome it?

    Describe your favorite planning project. Why was it your favorite? What was your role? Send us any photos or links to the project. You need to have permission to publish these photos.

    What is your favorite piece of advice given to you? Who gave it?

    What are you known for in the office?

    What is your favorite planning-related or relevant book?

    What planning concepts or topics are you particularly passionate about?

    2-3 your favorite areas of your community with captions and photo credit. If it is a favorite part of your community, please tell us why. You need to have permission to publish these photos.

    Please contact us with any questions.

  • These can be shorter overviews of projects (<500 words). If you have executive summary report/press releases, you might have a chunk of info that we need already. It doesn't have to be about finished projects/plans. Here are some examples of what we are looking for in a short article. Not all of these need to be addressed.

    Why you doing the project/plan?

    What problem is it addressing? How does it impact the public?

    Community demographics (brief)

    Graphics/photos - Must have permission to republish them. And need to be sent separate from the article

    Documents (We would like to put plans, etc on the website) Can send us a link too

    How you are engaging the public or engaged the public

    A brief section on next steps

    Brief bio

    Resources/any company info

    Other planners in the region are very interested to learn what you are doing in your community. Please email our editor to find out more.

  • Provide a summary of a planning or planning-related book. These should be between 500-1500 words, be clearly written, and compelling enough to understand the content originally presented. Citations of the original content are required.

  • For recently completed projects of interest to other planners in the West, please provide an outline of the project, key participants, timelines, important events, and outcomes. These can be in narrative or more structured formats.

  • WP encourages providing best practices on any given planning topic. These should be based in broad research, thoroughly cited, and of practical application to planners in the West.

  • Lessons Learned

    Examining current events through a planning lens

    Examining current legislation

    Planning trends

    Featured place/town

    Conference / event recaps

    What I wished I’d have known…

    Lester Stories — planning failures or funny stories

    Remembering planners who recently passed away

Article Submission PROCESS

  1. For articles which do not clearly fit into WP’s preferred guidelines, email an abstract of the topic to the editor in a brief email. They will approve or ask for refinement of the idea.

  2. Submit your article to the editor at editor@westernplanner.org in a Word document and include photos and graphics as separate attachments (i.e., not in the Word document). Please provide any credit and desired captions for each image or graphic. Be sure to include a suggested headline, any citations and a short bio.

  3. Upon submittal, the editor and the Editorial Board will review the article. These are conducted in a double-blind peer review format. Most of the time, the review results in a request to the author for minor changes or possibly some clarification. This usually takes 1-2 weeks from the submission date.

  4. Return the finalized article with any edits or changes back to the editor. It will be published in an upcoming journal issue.

Copyright Notice for Article Submission

  • Unless otherwise noted, the articles cannot be reproduced without permission from The Western Planner and the author. To request permission to republish material, please contact us.

  • If The Western Planner and the author approves the reprint, then the articles must include the following tagline: “This article was originally published in The Western Planner. Visit www.westernplanner.org to learn more.”

  • The authors give The Western Planner the first right and perpetual subsequent right to publish, reproduce, distribute, display and store the work in any medium. In cases where an article is not accepted for publication by the editorial board, the authors can submit the article to any other publication for first publication.

Disclaimer

The publisher, editors and authors accept no responsibility for any statement made or opinion expressed by any other person in this work. Consequently, they will not be liable for any loss or damage sustained by any reader as a result of his or her action upon any statement or opinion in this work.