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 creeping privatisation of public space?
This blog was first publised in August 2017. Might plans for a make-over for Edinburgh’s West Princes Street Gardens lead to a partial privatisation of an iconic public space? West Princes Street Gardens in the centre of Edinburgh are an outstanding feature of the city. They sit below the spectacular castle. A bandstand is at…
Ghana’s Urban Forum to focus on spatial planning
Ghana’s fifth National Urban Forum was convened on 25 August to reflect on the theme “Building Resilient Cities: Deepening Spatial Planning and Land Value Capture for Development in Ghana.” Previous meetings of the Forum have contributed to the Ghana Urban Policy and its Action Plan to improve city conditions. The Ghana Urban Agenda has been accepted at…
Elites treat the poor as disposable citizens – CV19 in India
Dispatch from Delhi on the CV19 crisis in India’s cities. “The COVID-19 pandemic is deepening the existing ruthless and exclusionary practices in India’s big cities, where elites treat the poor as ‘disposable citizens’ clearly evident when we see thousands of poor migrants being stranded in the middle of nowhere, whereas the upper-class people continue to…
Warsaw: Place Identities and the European Dream
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 21 May 2012. Warsaw is sprucing itself up for the European football championships that it will host next month. This is the latest stage in its transition from the planned socialist city to the city of 21st century consumerism. At times, these two faces…
World Urban Forum 9
The ninth World Urban Forum opens on 7 February 2018, and I am here in Kuala Lumpur and will be reporting on it on this website and on other social media. The World Urban Forum (WUF) is held every other year, and in a different city each time. Hosted by UN-Habitat, it brings together representatives…
Do you want fries with that?
This first appeared in Planning on 31 May 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Planning Resource.
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…
Gambling on casinos for regeneration: Why Atlantic City is out of luck
Posted November 10, 2014 by cliffhague While in Philadelphia recently for the annual conference of the American Collegiate Schools of Planning I was able to make a trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey, a place famous for its use of casinos as a driver for urban regeneration. As well as walking the famous boardwalk on a rather drab end of…
Community Archaeology
This blog was first published on 27 February 2012, on the Innovation Circle Network site. Community Archaeology The Isle of Bute is situated off the west coast of Scotland. It is peripheral to the periphery, and has all the added problems that come with being an island. Unemployment is high, incomes are low, houses are…
Western Balkans Realities
In the early 1990s Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, triggering a series of vicious wars as ethnic groups contested territories. I have been doing some work looking at current development in the countries of the Western Balkans. Although conditions have certainly improved over the past decade, and the World Bank now rates them as “upper middle…