The new urbanization necessitates the upgrading of urban governance and spatial planning and design. Landscape Architecture Frontiers accentuates the intelligence on urban growth and physical construction for years. In this issue, LA Frontiers focuses on the topics about urban governance and spatial quality improvement under the promotion of inventory planning and governance refinement, including: 1) Urban village (micro-) renewals, waterfront revitalization, and industrial, cultural, and historical heritage regeneration; 2) Public participation, community engagement, and other polycentric urban governance modes and inclusive design approaches; 3) The resilience of urban planning and design against sudden disasters and public health emergencies and crises; 4) Diagnoses on the working systems / mechanisms that support the upgrades of urban governance and public space construction, through lenses of Economic Sociology. By gathering cutting edge research with international outlooks and presenting latest practice examples among China and abroad, LA Frontiers might offer a new prospective that helps professionals interpret associated governance and planning policies, inform practitioners the goals and roadmaps of public empowerment, navigate planners and designers with flexible implementation and management guidelines, to eventually improve the spatial quality of public places, as well as the overall benefits in society, ecology, and economy.

While benefiting from the efficient and convenient urban life brought by the highly urbanized society, people are suffering from traffic congestion, energy shortage, and air and water pollution. In metropolises, these problems might aggravate city residents' mental stress, which has aroused a general concern on physical and psychological health. In this issue, we hope to improve urban spatial structure and enhance the quality of urban infrastructure, architecture, and landscape through research and design to form a slower-paced lifestyle, celebrate cultural identity, and create a more livable city environment that enjoys a smart use of space, a resource-saving development, a harmony between man and nature, and, a running efficiency of cities in which people feel pleasant and comfortable.

Reproduction of the original: An Architect ́s Note-Book in Spain by M. Digby Wyatt