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:
What will be the impact of Brexit on planning in the UK?
This blog was first published in June 2016, the day after the Brexit referenedum. A Brexit-induced crash in the markets seems likely to set the framework for the work of planners in the months ahead. I am writing early on Monday afternoon, 27 June 2016. The Pound has fallen to a 31 year low; shares…
Metropolitan challenges and affordable housing
This blog was first posted in February 2020. After the pomp of the opening ceremony, the 10th World Urban Forum got involved in two critical issues. How to plan and manage metropolitan areas? An event organised by ISOCARP focused on this urgent theme. A range of leading figures from organisations that included the World Bank,…
Conscious Cities – new ways of thinking about places
This blog was first posted in May 2016. The first issue of a new journal gives insights to new ways of thinking about cities. “Conscious Cities proposes a radical shift away from the last few decades’ prioritisation of efficiency over more people-centric considerations” argues Itai Palti in his editorial to the first issue of the journal…
EU and US Congress members plead Israel to stop demolition
The Foreign Ministers of the 28 European Union countries have called on Israel “to halt plans for forced transfer of population and demolition of Palestinian housing and infrastructure” in the village of Susiya in the West Bank. Eleven members of the US Congress have also written to Secretary of State John Kerry about the plight…
A high rise future?
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.
See Urbanisation as a Positive – or Fail
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 11 July 2011. A third of the world’s people are on the move, says Billy Cobbett, the Manager of Cities Alliance. Addressing the World Planning Schools Congress in Perth, Western Australia, Mr. Cobbett called for planners to transform the current wave of urbanisation into a sustainable…
Blow for Smart Cities as Toronto project is scrapped
The recent decision by Alphabet to scrap its ambitious waterfront regeneration project in Toronto is a landmark in the short history of smart cities. Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto Waterfront project was a flagship for the Smart Cities movement. Early in May 2020 it was abandoned. The germination, contestation and demise of the scheme will be mulled…
The Digital Archipelago: The Saviour of the Greek Economy
This Guest Blog by Emeritus Professor Klaus Kunzmann proposes a radical approach to Greece’s economic difficulties By Klaus Kunzmann Enough gloom and doom When reading all the gloomy stories about Greece, I have learnt much about banks and financial institutions, about the imperatives of debt reductions, about the growing conflict between the German culture of order…
Cliff has operated as a freelance consultant since 2004. He does research, authors reports and is a facilitator and trainer.
Cliff has operated as a freelance consultant since 2004. He does research, authors reports and is a facilitator and trainer. European Observation Network for Territorial Cohesion and Development (ESPON) 2013 Programme. Cliff has worked with Spatial Foresight GmbH (http://www.spatialforesight.eu/spatial-foresight.html ) to deliver research-based reports the ESPON Co-ordination Unit on European territorial development and policy.
Capacity crisis is hitting urban development in Pakistan
This item was first posted in October 2019. Pakistan is suffering from chronic underinvestment in urban planning. The leading newspaper in the Punjab has run a story about unfilled professional planning posts, noting some of the negative consequences. The article in Dawn, states that “Many professionals working in the public and private sectors have either left…