Against the backdrop of critical urban transformation challenges, this special issue of ‘Habitat International’ aims to feature new conceptual and empirical insights into the specific capacities required for effectively enabling, initiating, steering and performing systemic urban change for sustainability at local and global scales. Across contributions, the objective is to illuminate how building such capacities translates into urban (meta-) governance, policy and practice. Analyses from the global North and South are requested that can enable new understandings of the similarities and differences in terms of capacity for urban transformation. Guiding questions are: What are constitutive and distinctive components of urban transformative capacity, and how do they interact? How can such capacity be consistently assessed and compared between world regions, countries and places? How can this focus on capacity contribute to purposefully shape urban transitions towards sustainability and resilience? Extended abstracts of 500 words (plus key references) should be submitted by 31.10.2016 to: m.wolfram@yonsei.ac.kr. More information: https://goo.gl/jw4Gjf