Between algorithm and agora: Ethical challenges in AI-assisted city planning – A systematic review and conceptual framework

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in urban planning through predictive analytics, digital platforms, and algorithmic decision-support. While these tools can enhance analytical capacity, they also introduce ethical risks that are often only addressed implicitly by existing frameworks. This study conducts a systematic literature review of 85 studies on AI-assisted planning scholarship to synthesize five interrelated ethical challenges: algorithmic redlining, digital exclusion, data sovereignty, algorithmic opacity (addressed through AI governance and algorithmic transparency), and professional ethical responsibility. The synthesis reveals that algorithmic redlining and digital exclusion are the most extensively theorised challenges in the existing literature, whereas data sovereignty and professional ethical responsibility remain comparatively underdeveloped; indicating a significant gap between the governance demands of AI-assisted planning and the profession-specific frameworks available to address them. The synthesis shows that these risks are mutually reinforcing, as participation inequalities and biased training data interact to produce unfair outcomes, while opaque vendor systems can weaken accountability and public trust. Building on these findings, the paper proposes a profession-facing ethical framework grounded in the shared professional conduct principles of planning bodies across Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. It argues that planners must act as ethically informed stewards of algorithmic governance by strengthening algorithmic literacy, documenting data provenance, demanding explainability, and maintaining inclusive engagement pathways. The framework is designed to be transferable across comparable Western planning systems. The findings have important implications for urban planners and planning professionals, as well as for researchers, by highlighting the need to strengthen ethical competencies, develop context-specific governance approaches, and further advance interdisciplinary research on AI-assisted urban planning.