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:
Rural reform is on the OECD agenda
This blog was first posted on 8 October 2014. A new OECD report, Regions and Cities: Where policies and people meet, makes the point that regional disparities in income are widening. It calls for a place-sensitive approach to policy making, in other words it recognises that policies need to be tuned to specific characteristics of places, rather…
Planning on the West Bank (2): Land, water and people
Posted September 11, 2014 by cliffhague & file Today I have been to Nablus and followed the River Jordan down to Jericho. I have spoken to a conference, eaten falafel in the bazaar, talked with the most remarkable mayor I have ever met, and come to better understand the significance of water and land in this arid regions. The…
External expert on ESPON (2013) projects
ESPON 2013 is an applied research programme partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund and partly by the 28 EU member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Its research has built an evidence base to support policy development for territorial cohesion and development. Some of its projects support transnational work amongst networks of…
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.
Rural links vital for sustainable cities
The increasing global emphasis on the cities must not obscure the importance of rural areas and their links to cities. This is the argument in a valuable thoughtpiece by Christine Platt, Past President of the Commonwealth Association of Planners in reflecting on the preparations for the Habitat III summit in Quito in October 2016. Reflecting…
New housing floorspace will be the area of the Netherlands by 2025
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 17 July 2012. The next generation is going to witness a staggering amount of new urban development as the world’s economic centre of gravity shifts towards Asia. Cities in both developed and rapidly urbanising countries need professional planning if they are to prosper. Companies…
1972: The End of an Era?
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 24 April 2012. This week Planning magazine celebrates its 40th birthday. At this critical juncture, the point where mid-life crisis is supposed to kick in with a vengeance, I thought that I should look back to where I was in 1972, while still taking…
Should gentrification be a concern for planning?
Gentrification is an issue in cities across the world, but urban planning systems are ill-equipped to deal with it. This blog was first posted in October 2016. When modern planning systems were first constructed, the word “gentrification “ did not exist. It was coined by the sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964 (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab/news/ruth-glass-seminar). She explained how…
Convenor, RTPI Scottish Branch, 1983
I was elected Convenor of the Scottish Branch of the RTPI for 1983. The picture shows how the Branch’s magazine reported it. Between 1975 and 1987 the Radical Institute Group (RIG) produced a manifesto backed by a slate of candidates in RTPI elections and also contested some Branch elections. In standing against the sitting vice-convenor…
Denmark’s new Architecture Policy
Posted May 26, 2014 by cliffhague “Architecture is for people”. This is how the new Danish Architecture Policy begins. The Danish government sees architecture as defining the country at home and internationally. It is about competitiveness, moving towards sustainability and social cohesion. The new policy depicts architecture as contributing to “the development of the welfare state”, and says that local…