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…
New York has long been a money spinner for AirBnB. In January 2023 there were 38,500 listings. As…
In 2010 the Commonwealth Association of Planners held its first Student Essay competition. The winners were Jeremiah Atho…
Ken Loach’s film, Kes, was released in 1969. What does it tell us about life in a coalfield…
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.
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Seek the truth, speak the truth, defend the truth, live in truth. In my presentation to the closing session of the Association of European Schools of Planning annual congress, I drew on traditional Czech ideals to shape some messages for planners and planning educators. This blog provides an extended version of what I said. In…
Mumbai has been a powerful driver of economic growth in India over the past couple of decades. It is a mega-city with an estimated population of over 20 million. Much of the growth has taken place despite rather than because of planning. A spate of building collapses in recent weeks has prompted new debates about…
Ruthless developers are literally undermining a Kenyan school in an attempt to capture the rights to valuable land, alleges a priest with wide experience of the country. Most new development in Kenya is informal. Land piracy has long been a significant factor in urban development. Schools have become especially vulnerable, so much so that in…
Probably the outstanding example of small town regeneration in Scotland is West Kilbride. It is a coastal town about 45 kilometers from Glasgow. It has a population of just under 5,000 inhabitants. Although it has quite an affluent population, decline had set in by the mid-1990s, when about half of the retail properties on the town’s…
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 7 December 2011. We are facing a “deadly collision between urbanization and climate change”. This is the warning given in the 2011 Global Report on Human Settlements published by UN-Habitat. It comes at a time when expectation is rock bottom that governments will achieve a positive…
News from Sierra Leone that 9,000 slum dwellers have been made homeless by demolition of their homes highlights the need for planners to fundamentally rethink conventional approaches to housing the poor. The new Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN commit governments to inclusive cities. In particular one target for the “Urban Goal”, Goal 11, is “By 2030,…
This second half of my World View Timeline for planning globally over the past century covers the period 1964-2013. The first part, 1914-1963, was covered in an earlier blog. It highlighted the ideas and practices that shaped 50 years of planning – from Patrick Geddes’ “Cities in Evolution” to Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of…
This blog was posted in Novermber 2015. World Town Planning Day (8 November) was celebrated in Kabul by a national urban conference addressed by the President. Minister for Urban Development, Sadat Naderi, highlighted the Urban National Priority Programme as Afghanistan’s new framework for urban sustainability and planning according international planning standards, building upon the country’s…
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 28 September 2011. There is a clear message that comes from the modern literature about competitiveness. In a knowledge economy, competitiveness is closely tied to innovation. However, innovation is not a linear process from men in white coats in laboratories through to a commercially…
“I studied the laws surrounding Airbnb all over the world. None are perfect. ” David Wachsmuth. Laws are almost irrelevant if you do not have access to Airbnb data to implement them ” says David Wachsmuth. Associate Professor in Urban Planning, McGill University. Despite legislation seeking to limit and control online short-term rentals, Montreal has five…