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.
Books
Some articles fromall categories:
The Housing Market Crisis in Sun-Belt US Cities
his blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 14 June 2011. After spending a month in the USA (the reason for the lack of recent blogs) I have really begun to grasp the scale of the housing market crisis there. The sub-prime US mortgage market triggered the global economic crisis in 2007-8.…
A world thirsty for water
Water. Can’t live without it. From different places across the world comes news of growing crises in access to this most basic resource. 2013-04-01 Gambling on getting more water In the arid south-west of the USA, water has been an issue for some time. That has something to do with building cities in deserts. The…
For inclusive planning confront exclusion
To make places inclusive, planners and placemakers need to understand exclusion. ‘Make cities and human settlements safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable’. SDG 11 set a clear path forward for planners. Making planning an inclusive process is a central theme of the New Urban Agenda. The RTPI has called for an ‘inclusive recovery’ from the Covid pandemic, saying that this…
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…
Shaping Metropolitan Growth
Metropolitan growth receives less attention than it deserves. The spread of metropolitan regions is one of the defining features of the age, yet as most of it is taking place in the developing world it goes largely unremarked by Western planners and urbanists. Of course, we have our own metropolitan regions that are deeply problematic…
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?…
EU INTERREG projects
The INTERREG programmes aim to improve the effectiveness of regional policies and instruments within Europe. It promotes international cooperation and exchange of know-how between partners engaged in the making and delivery of policies and actions for regional and local development. Cliff has worked as an external expert on a number of INTERREG projects.
Ten messages from Scotland for Planners around the World
On World Town Planning Day 2019, I was part of an event in Dundee organised by RTPI (Scotland) with the theme “Through the Years, Across the Globe”. Discussion during and after prompted me to ponder Scotland’s messages to an international audience of planners and urbanists. For a small country, Scotland has contributed significantly to thinking…
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…
Time tested principles for successful place-making
How do you create attractive and environmentally sustainable places? A new, updated edition of a major text provides powerful lessons and evidence. The first edition of Randall Arendt’s Rural by Design was published 20 years ago, and became a classic resource for a generation of planners and urbanists in North America. The new edition is even better, and has…