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…
Local history and a trip to a Planning Committee meeting. The second part of my Diary as published in Planning on 11 December 1987. To read the first part of this article, please click here. The article is reproduced by kind permission of the editor of Planning. To seem more of my old columns in Planning, please go to the…
In a week when my term of office as President of the Royal Town Planning Institute came to a close, I also faced being made redundant. This largely inconsequential article that I wrote in 1997 is redeemed by the photo of me wearing my Eric Cantona T-shirt while meeting a pirate. It also provides some…
A chance to read my monthly Diary in Planning from June 1989, which starts in Berlin just months before the Berlin Wall came down. It also looks at the Adam Smith Institute’s ideas for privatising streets – an idea that might be revived post-Covid19? Of course there have been many gated communities developed in the meantime. Click here to read…
Back in 2006 I wrote an article in Planning, which recalled my working environment in 1973. Here it is. In 2006 Life on Mars was showing on TV, re-imagining the world of policing in the sexist 1970s where bad fashion choices were all the rage. My recreation of that early 1970s period in planning history, when I was…
The 2006 World Urban Forum was a significant step on the road to creating a New Urban Agenda. Here is my first hand account from July 2006 of how we went about re-inventing planning. This article was written during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and is reproduced here by kind permission of the editor of…
My article in January 2000 looked back and gazed into the future. How well did I do in anticipating change in British cities, planning and higher education? This article first appeared in Planning 14 January 2000. It is reproduced by kind permission of the editor. 422 total views, 9 views today
The Stern Report in 2006 seemed to signal a shift in attitudes to climate change. The article imagines a discussion between a Treasury mandarin and a businessman. Would this case convince Donald Trump or big business today? This article was first published in Planning on 1 December 2006, and is reproduced by kind permission of…
In 1995 I was invited to speak to a landmark conference in South Africa for the transition of planning after apartheid. I reported on my visit in my monthly magazine column. This was first published in Planning Week, 14 December 1995. 251 total views, 6 views today
Twenty years ago I became RTPI President. Here is the text of the speech I gave to RTPI Council on my inauguration. It ends by reaffirming the manifesto published in 1975 by the Radical Institute Group, of which I was one of the founders. After thanking the RTPI, my colleagues and employer and my family…
I was elected Convenor of the Scottish Branch of the RTPI for 1983. The picture shows how the Branch’s magazine reported it. Between 1975 and 1987 the Radical Institute Group (RIG) produced a manifesto backed by a slate of candidates in RTPI elections and also contested some Branch elections. In standing against the sitting vice-convenor…
This first appeared in Planning on 16 January 2004 and is reproduced by kind permission of Planning Resource. 210 total views, 4 views today
This first appeared in Planning on 29 November 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Haymarket Publications. 213 total views, 2 views today
This piece was first published in Planning 21 July 1989 and is reproduced by kind permission of Haymarket Publications. Because it ran over 2 pages it has to be reproduced here as two separate items The “Diary” tells of a week spent in meetings with planners in what was then Czechoslovakia. It was written just…
This first appeared in Planning on 31 May 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Planning Resource. 208 total views, 4 views today