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
Some articles fromall categories:
Participatory 3D mapping: A tool for disaster risk reduction
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 15 May 2012. Natural disasters continue to claim lives and devastate families, particularly the global South. The poor are most vulnerable as they typically live in the most hazardous locations. However, this social and geographical reality also compounds the problems, because of the gaps…
Grid-based plans for urban extensions
This blog was first posted in 2016. A simple grid plan for urban extensions should be the basis for managing rapid urbanisation says a new UN-Habitat report. The value of a grid as an organising structure for new development is demonstrated through historic and contemporary examples from different continents. UN-Habitat’s report concludes that “The main virtue of…
Gambling on casinos for regeneration: Why Atlantic City is out of luck
Posted November 10, 2014 by cliffhague While in Philadelphia recently for the annual conference of the American Collegiate Schools of Planning I was able to make a trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey, a place famous for its use of casinos as a driver for urban regeneration. As well as walking the famous boardwalk on a rather drab end of…
World Urban Forum 9
The ninth World Urban Forum opens on 7 February 2018, and I am here in Kuala Lumpur and will be reporting on it on this website and on other social media. The World Urban Forum (WUF) is held every other year, and in a different city each time. Hosted by UN-Habitat, it brings together representatives…
Informal development reaches Harare’s leafy suburbs
Informal development is now penetrating the formerly exclusive suburbs of Harare, Zimbabwe’s main city. lLike many colonial cities the early planning of Harare sought to segregate areas by class and ethnicity. However, urbanisation and poverty are now resulting in green spaces in low density suburbs becoming the focus for informal housing that brings the poor…
Free on-line learning on cities and planning
The Erasmus University in Rotterdam provides a series of on-line training materials on urban development and planning, with a particular focus on rapidly urbanising countries. How to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change in African cities? How to finance urban infrastructure? What is Local Economic Development and how can it be delivered?…
Research shows link between green environments and physical activity
A wide-ranging review of the research literature reveals that living in an environment with plentful greenery seems to be associated with a number of indicators of good health. The study reveals what the authors say is “fairly strong evidence” that there is a positive association between greenness and physical activity. As well as having phyical…
Rural to urban migration in a different culture
This blog was first published on 27 February 2012, on the Innovation Circle network website. Happy New Year – the Chinese Year of the Dragon! Every Chinese New Year 130 million people in the world’s most populous country head back home to their villages for family celebrations. It is the world’s largest human migration and…
New Delhi – a public health disaster
Almost half of the children in New Delhi are suffering irreversible lung damage because of the toxic levels of air pollution in the city. A number of factors make children particularly vulnerable to air pollution. They have lower immunity than adults and their respirtory tracts are easier for pollutnants to penetrate. Also particulate matter is concentrated…
The Square: the guilt and fragility of a comfortable urban life
The film The Square is about more than the excesses of contemporary art. It explores the conditions on which people are able to live in cities. In his film The Square, director Ruben Östlund dissects the contemporary urban condition. Certainly squares are geometrical shapes, and the geometrical motif is one of several images and sounds that carefully knit this…