Our experiences working with local planning departments motivated and informed our thinking about the possibilities for equity planning today and our desire to guest edit this focus issue.

In this focus issue, we return to the core concepts of equity and advocacy planning theory to ask "what is the state of equity planning today?" The goal of this issue is to spur conversation about equity planning, equity in planning, and equity planners. This planning model is confronting persistent and emerging challenges of social and economic disparity and political marginalization: long-term poverty and ghettoization of racialized minorities, emerging racial/ethnic demographic majorities, the spatialized effects of the predatory financial sector and its collapse, and impacts of the global recession including differential effects of government austerity.

As the articles collected in this issue demonstrate, equity planning is now occurring across wide-ranging fields, urban scales, and institutional contexts. They reflect a range of specializations including community development, economic development, neighborhood planning, regionalism, health, planning pedagogy, and environmental planning. The articles direct attention to the kinds of plans and policies, analyses, modes of practice, and processes that are needed today to advance equity and justice in a multitude of contexts.