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:
A brand-led approach to saving town centres
There is much concern at present about the plight of town centres, especially in small and medium-sized towns. There are many more empty shops as the economic problems hit consumers and businesses. However, there are also structural underlying problems. The growth and convenience of large edge-of-town supermarkets and retail warehouses has badly impacted on businesses based…
Learning from Oregon
I am just back from spending 3 weeks in Oregon. What can IC members learn from that beautiful part of the world? Oregon in the Pacific North-West of theUSA shares a number of features with the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). 2012-08-30 It is relatively peripheral within the continental land mass and in relation to the major urban…
Why are national urban policies needed?
A wide ranging international review of national urban policies highlights the importance to national development of coordinated planning and well-functioning urban areas. Urban planning is seen as an economic imperative. “The argumentthat well-functioning urban areas can help to unleash the development potential of nations is more persuasive than the argument that urban policy is about…
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…
The future of our urban parks and greenspaces
The value of parks needs to be rethought in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. “People are now beginning to see the value of parks.” This was a central message from New York City Parks Convenor Mitchell Silver, during our public conversation on Zoom on 25 June 2020, as part of the Cockburn Association campaign…
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…
Article in ‘A Week in Palestine’ November 2015
This article, based on the work of our International Advisory Group to UN-Habitat, appeared in the magazine A Week in Palestine, November 2015, pp.18-22 http://thisweekinpalestine.com/international-experts-call-for-fundamental-changes-in-israels-approach-to-planning-and-development-in-area-c/
Urban post-2015 UN sustainable development goal update
Posted September 26, 2014 by cliffhague The ‘urban’ goal remains in the list that the UN general assembly is considering this week. As long as it gets through, then adoption next year should be a formality, unless some country really wants to make an issue about it. As not much information is available about this, and it is an issue…
Reviving town centres
Look at your town centre as a network of gardens, a promenade, a stage and be prepared to be outrageous. This was the advice given by Julian Dobson to meeting of the Scottish Towns Partnership in Edinburgh. He stressed the need to challenge the existing narratives about town centres which are too often about decline and narrowly…
Green Growth for Europe
This blog was first published in early 2012 on the Innovation Circle Network website. Green growth is one of the themes that the Danish Presidency of the EU wishes to advance. Denmark holds the Presidency from now until July, when Cyprus takes over. The government of Denmark has only been in power for a few…