Verna Nel is a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Free State, South Africa. She had extensive experience in local government, including as Chief Town Planner in the Centurion Town Council and the City of Tshwane’s City Planning Function, before joining the university. She has published on spatial governance, urban resilience, secondary cities, and the impacts of mining on communities. She is a consultant on land use management. Stuart Paul Denoon-Stevens has a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning and is Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University (UK). Initially working as a planner in development control, since 2015 he has been working as an academic, conducting research on topics such as development control, housing, spatial planning for mining towns, and planning practice and education. He has been involved in high-level policy and legislative work relating to planning legislation and spatial planning in South Africa and has previously co-led a major NRF-ESRC project focused on planning education and practice in South Africa.