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
Leading Change: Delivering the New Urban Agenda through Urban and Territorial Planning
Link to download for free
Place Identity, Participation and Planning
Link to buy
Some articles fromall categories:
Metropolitan challenges and affordable housing
This blog was first posted in February 2020. After the pomp of the opening ceremony, the 10th World Urban Forum got involved in two critical issues. How to plan and manage metropolitan areas? An event organised by ISOCARP focused on this urgent theme. A range of leading figures from organisations that included the World Bank,…
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…
Listen to the “Rural Voice”
“The planning system has a significant role in supporting sustainable economic growth in rural areas.” This statement is from the Scottish Government’s Planning Policy. However, planning decisions in rural Scotland can often be very controversial, as Cliff Hague explains in his new blog post. 2013-02-05 There are a range of development pressures on the Scottish…
Berlin, June 1989
A chance to read my monthly Diary in Planning from June 1989, which starts in Berlin just months before the Berlin Wall came down. It also looks at the Adam Smith Institute’s ideas for privatising streets – an idea that might be revived post-Covid19? Of course there have been many gated communities developed in the meantime. This was…
Cities of tomorrow – towers or tents?
Young people from Germany, Norway, Latvia, Poland, Russia and Scotland attended last week’s international youth summer school in Benmore, Scotland. The event was put on by Planning Aid for Scotland and by Innovation Circle. The theme was “Cities of Tomorrow”. I was asked to lead the introductory session. I started with a Powerpoint showing visions from 1913 and…
Smart cities is a strong theme in the World Urban Forum
This blog was first posted in February 2018. The exhibition at the Ninth World Urban Forum highlights the Asian embrace of Smart Cities. This is my fourth World Urban Forum, and, as ever, the exhibition is worth visiting. Most of the booths are taken by national governments, some by cities or local government organisations, a…
Leading Change: Delivering the New Urban Agenda through Urban and Territorial Planning
Link to download for free
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…
Stockholm My Love – the redemptive potential of a city
This review was first posted in 2017. A new film reflects on Stockholm’s modernist architecture and public spaces, showing how experiencing places can contribute to wellbeing. The cinema has made icons of some cities. The global reach of Hollywood means that we are all familiar with the streets and suburbs of Los Angeles or the…
