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
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Regional and Local Economic Development
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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.
Books
Leading Change: Delivering the New Urban Agenda through Urban and Territorial Planning
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Place Identity, Participation and Planning
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Some articles fromall categories:
Brexit – Why and what next?
Why has Brexit happened and what happens next? I am writing a few hours after the result was declared and before all the detailed analysis that will surely follow. But in some respects that does not matter – indeed, one of the themes of the referendum campaign was that “facts” from “experts” were not to…
By Leaves We Live
How do you evaluate a landscape? It is a question that lies at the heart of decision-making on controversial developments in the countryside, such as wind farms or new highways. Since the 1970s landscape evaluation has become a very technocratic process, much to the frustration of many non-professionals who may care deeply about a place…
New housing and regeneration practices for difficult times
Guest blogger, the distinguished Hungarian researcher and consultant, Iván Tosics, reflects on radical alternatives to address today’s urban challenges. This Guest Blog is contributed by Iván Tosics, an internationally renowned housing and planning expert. The photo above shows new housing for refugees in Freiburg, Germany. I have the feeling that our normal life is melting down. Leandro Erlich,…
High rise, mud and shoddy housing – Prefab Story
Věra Chytilová’s film Panelstory is essential viewing for planners and housing professionals. Made in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1979, it shows residents (not) adjusting to life in a new high rise estate. While the prefabricated panels are swung by huge cranes through space against a blue sky, on the ground women struggle to push prams and buggies…
Other European projects
ERASMUS + Erasmus+ http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/index_en.htm is an EU programme supporting education, training, youth and sport. SWECO Urban Futures AB, Sweden http://www.sweco.se/sv/Sweden/ 2013: Case study report on housing regeneration in Wester Hailes, Edinburgh. INTERACT INTERACT is an EU programme that promotes exchange of knowledge and best practices amongst cooperation programmes. TEMPUS The TEMPUS programme supports the modernisation of higher…
Smart Cities, governance and urban transport
This item was first posted in 2017. How can cities in the rapidly urbanising world benefit from Smart City approaches to urban management? I am just back from my second visit to Luanda, the capital of Angola. I was running a workshop there that was wrapping up a Smart Cities project that is part of…
EU briefing on their Urban Agenda
The European Parliament has issed a useful briefing note explaining the background to moves to deveop an Urban Agenda for the EU, and also sketching out some of the political tensions that the move is generating. Some 70% of EU citizens live in urban areas. In addition, most EU policies have some impact, direct or…
Unfilled posts and poorly targeted employment initiatives
My column in Planning in 1987, has a contemporary feel in 2020 as issues of mass unemployment and Council cuts come to the fore once again. A Director of Planning post left unfilled to save money. Doing away with planning. Why I gave up on RTPI Council. The interplay of place and class in labour markets. This…
Afghanistan celebrates World Town Planning Day
This blog was posted in Novermber 2015. World Town Planning Day (8 November) was celebrated in Kabul by a national urban conference addressed by the President. Minister for Urban Development, Sadat Naderi, highlighted the Urban National Priority Programme as Afghanistan’s new framework for urban sustainability and planning according international planning standards, building upon the country’s…
Planning and politics
This first appeared in Planning on 29 November 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Haymarket Publications.