| Abstract | This special issue of Planning Perspectives explores the significance of Expos for envisioning, predicting, and shaping the futures of cities. The papers explore the ways that they have affected host cities but also employ Expos as a ‘prism’ through which we can better understand planning approaches, planning cultures and planning histories more generally. This introductory essay provides a conceptual and contextual basis for the papers that follow. We argue that Expos can be usefully understood as [complex] planning exhibitions and as mega-events, and we explore the specific challenges associated with planning post-Expo legacies. We also explain the various ways that Expos operate as agents of urban transformation by outlining the ways they function as exemplars, as experiences, as experiments, and as expropriations. |
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