Document is current

Article History

Received: 17 April 2025

Accepted: 7 November 2025

First Online: 16 March 2026

Declarations

:

: During the preparation of this work the authors used ChatGPT to improve the readability, conciseness, and check the grammar in the entire paper. After using this tool, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the publication.

: The supporting information is split into two files: Supplemental Information and Supporting Information B. Supporting Information A provides a self-assessment that can be taken to determine the archetype of a circular city (Appendix A), a detailed overview of the circular actions identified from the analysis (Appendix B), further details on the study’s methodology (Appendix C), an overview of the initial sample of 255 cities (Appendix D), an overview of the f inal sample of 26 cities and the analyzed text from the circular strategies (Appendix E), an overview of the 18 interviewees (Appendix F), a summary of the naming rationale for the four archetypes (Appendix G) and a detailed overview of the content analysis applied on the 26-city sample (Appendix H). Supplemental Information provides the numerical data used in Figures 3 and 4 from the manuscript (Appendix I).