Impacts of AirBnB regulation in New York
New York has long been a money spinner for AirBnB. In January 2023 there were 38,500 listings. As…
Planning a Refugee Camp
In 2010 the Commonwealth Association of Planners held its first Student Essay competition. The winners were Jeremiah Atho…
Kes Revisited – The welfare state and community in the late 1960s
Ken Loach’s film, Kes, was released in 1969. What does it tell us about life in a coalfield…
Place Identity, Participation and Planning
Link to buy
Regional and Local Economic Development
Link to buy
Cliff is a freelance consultant, researcher, author and trainer. He was the Chair of the Cockburn Association 2016 – 2023.
He is Professor Emeritus of Planning and Spatial Development at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
He is a Past President of the Royal Town Planning Institute, and of the Commonwealth Association of Planners.
He is a past Chair of Built Environment Forum Scotland.
He was awarded the O.B.E. in the 2016 Birthday Honours.
Some articles fromall categories:
Healthy cities
America’s obesity crisis is creating a new concern to make healthy cities, though the rhetoric outstrips the plans. A recent blog on a health website says that more than half of U.S. adults don’t meet the recommended daily requirements for aerobic exercise or physical activity. It makes the case for better planning and design to…
Development and planning in Cyprus
Last week in Cyprus, I was able to get some insights into the development challenges facing this part of Europe. In a snapshot, Mediterranean islands like Cyprus were early cradles of urbanisation and often have a rich archaeological legacy. They were poor agricultural areas until mass tourism began in the 1970s. The boom saw the…
Local food networks and the Greek bailout
The spatial impacts of the bailout deals forced on Greece have yet to be fully assessed. However, the early indications are that they will have negative impacts on small and medium sized enterprises which are so important in small towns and rural regions, and also on local food networks. One of the requirements of the…
Science in support of European Territorial Development and Cohesion
Science in support of European Territorial Development and Cohesion, Second ESPON 2013 Scientific Report, December 2013 (2014) http://www.espon.eu/export/sites/default/Documents/Publications/ScientificReports . Paper peer review and language editing.
World Urban Forum 9 – A missed opportunity for UK
World Urban Forum 9, in Kuala Lumpur in 2018, was an opportunity to show UK engagement with urbanisation as a global issue. It was missed. Here is the blog I posted from that event. The UK remains myopic about the opportunities and challenges of the urbanisation of the planet. We may fret about the lack…
Commonwealth, international and global projects
UN-Habitat Support to Palestinians at risk of displacement in Israeli Controlled Area C of the West Bank, 2014-15. Commonwealth Secretariat Developing Urban Planning Education, 2011. Managing urbanisation in small developing states, 2011. Hungarian EU Presidency The Territorial State and Perspectives of the European Union: Update 2011 http://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/EN/SpatialDevelopment/SpatialDevelopmentEurope Department for International Development Making Planning Work, 2006.
Planning and politics
This first appeared in Planning on 29 November 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Haymarket Publications.
New UN goals should change the agenda for planners
The 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted by governments at the United Nations next week pose a direct challenge and opportunity for planning and other built environment professionals. Your government is about to sign a commitment that from now until 2030 they will work to”Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. This is the…
How setting national climate budgets obscure the need to really tackle the climate emergency
This item was first published in July 2019. Why is the French Government failing to meet its own goals on limiting CO2 emissions? A blog by Pierre Calame provides insights into why France is not meeting its targets on energy and the climate emergency. The messages apply to many other countries too. Calame points out that successive…
Rethinking the role of museums and public galleries
Here in UK, and particularly in the North of England, museums and public galleries are being closed down as councils struggle to cope with real reductions in income forced by the UK government’s austerity programme. In USA it is a different story. Many towns and cities created public galleries and museums in the nineteenth century or early…