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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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:
Do you want fries with that?
This first appeared in Planning on 31 May 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Planning Resource.
Cities for people to invest in – or to live in?
We are building cities to attract investment, not cities for people to live in, argued David Harvey, the distinguished geographer, speaking in Montevideo. Harvey argued that in times of economic crisis, one escape strategy has been to invest in the built environment, as a way to create opportunities for capital and to get potentially rebellious…
What’s new about the New Urban Agenda?
This blog was first posted in February 2018. South Africa is engaging fully with the New Urban Agenda, and posing some fundamental questions about what it means to be a planner in today’s world. Confession: I only went into one session at the World Urban Forum today. Lest it seems that I was skipping classes,…
The State of China’s Cities
I have referred to Chinese urbanisation several times in these blogs, but make no apologies for returning to the topic. What is happening in China should be of interest to planners, urbanists, environmentalists and economic development professionals everywhere. In part this is because of the sheer scale of the changes – a rural to urban…
Zlin – Conserving a classic of functionalism
Zlin is an outstanding example of a town inspired by 20th century functionalist architecture. This classic company town was a product of the Bata shoe company, its “home town” that the company then mimicked across the continents. It survived Communism, and now a finely balanced conflict is taking place between conservation and consumer capitalism. The…
A unique international oral history of planning ideas and practices
Posted March 28, 2014 by cliffhague In May in Vienna there will be a unique event. It will bring together sixteen people who have been leading figures in the academic development of planning over the past decades – or fifteen and me to be more accurate! The Evolution of Planning Thought project seeks to collect an oral history of…
Inauguration speech as RTPI President 1996
This was first posted in 2016. 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…
Dr. Keith Thomas – An appreciation
The death was recently announced of Dr. Keith Thomas who for many years taught students of planning at Oxford Brookes University. The death was recently announced of Dr. Keith Thomas who for many years taught students of planning at Oxford Brookes University. Before moving to Oxford in the mid-1970s, Keith was a Senior Lecturer in…
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…
Trump, planning and cities
A guest blog by Klaus Kunzmann, first posted in 2016, reflected on the likely impact of Trump’s victory and prompted me to respond with some more ideas. Klaus Kunzmann has pointed to the potentially negative impacts on planning arising from Donald Trump’s ascendency to the US presidency. It is difficult to disagree with his dystopian prognosis. An…