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:
Force Majeure movie review: Explosions in a landscape
The film Force Majeure focuses on the tensions within a marriage, but it also depicts the tensions between people and the natural environment. The original Swedish title of Ruben Östlund’s internationally acclaimed film Force Majeure is Turist, which is “Tourist”. The pivotal drama in the film is the moment early on when an avalanche of snow threatens to bury the winter…
Effective strategic planning
This item was first published in 2015. Passion for strategic spatial planning has too rarely endured, thus undermining precisely what it needs, which is a long term perspective. So often startegic planning is disregarded or under-resourced, but used effectively it could provide a means of delivering inclusive and sustainable development. Therefore research by a practising…
Amsterdam, Formation of AESOP and a trip to a Planning Committee
My “Diary” article in 1987 records the formation of the Association of European Schools of Planning, AND of the Scottish Torquay United Supporters Club (which has not proved as long-lasting). The article was first published in Planning on 11 December 1987 and is reproduced with the kind permission of the editor. To see more of my old…
A public services watershed
This first appeared in Planning on 16 January 2004 and is reproduced by kind permission of Planning Resource.
Land, Development and Planning in Brunei
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 14 November 2011. The palm trees sway in the breeze. Under a blue sky, the waves lap the beach of a sandy cove. The nearby mangrove forests are home to an amazing diversity of wildlife. How will Brunei, this tropical paradise, cope with the…
WUF10 – Disasters waiting to happen
This is my third blog from the 10th World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi in February 2020. Today has not been a disaster! Far from it, there have been some really good stories to hear at the World Urban Forum. But I want to put the theme of disasters at the heart of this blog.…
A World Viewtime-line of planning over the past century:
In 2013 I helped RTPI construct a timeline to tell the story of planning 1914-2014 for their centenary year. Inevitably the focus was on the Institute itself and events in the UK. However, it set me wondering what a “World View” of planning over that 100 years might look like? If you had to nominate…
Why civic trust is draining away
This blog was published in March 2016. Civic pride and civic trust are important for community cohesion and well-being, but are being eroded by austerity and a centralised system of planning and local government. This was a central theme of the inaugural Scottish Civic Trust Annual Lecture which I delivered in Edinburgh on 2 March.…
One Belt One Road – spatial planning at global scale?
This blog was first posted in January 2018. At an Innovation Circle Network conference in December 2017 I spoke about China’s One Belt One Road vision. This blog sketches and comments on this ambitious transnational project. In January 2017 the East Wind arrived in London. The freight train’s journey had taken 16 days and covered 12,000kms from…
Seeing Europe through Young Eyes
This blog was first posted in August 2016. Today, it is the young people who most strongly uphold the ideal of Europe as a shared space, where people from different countries lie and work together. The Young Eyes project, that has involved teenagers from Poland, Latvia and Sweden and young professionals from Scotland, shows how…