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
Some articles fromall categories:
Migration, Afrophobia and Butchery in urban South Africa
The brutal murder of Emmanuel Sithole in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra is a frightening sign of the potential for ethnic divisions to destroy social cohesion and economic growth. It undermines the moral leadership that South Africa has been able to exercise since the end of apartheid. It is part of a pattern of Afrophobia…
Forced evictions – there are alternatives
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,…
Local food networks – how what you eat can drive local developmentv
Local food networks are attracting increasing attention. This week I picked up Issue 1 of Nourish Scotland Magazine, which is produced by Scotland’s sustainable food network. Pete Richie, Director of Nourish Scotland, sums up the organisation’s basic vision. It is to “reimagine farming as a service: and a service which is increasingly co-produced by farmers and…
Opportunities and threats for Territorial Cohesion
Opportunities and threats for Territorial Cohesion: Blue Growth and Urban Poverty, Report from the ESPON Open Seminar in Nafplion – Greece, 4 and 5 June 2014 (2014) Co-author.
Growth and the commercialisation of public space in Edinburgh
This item was first posted in November 2019. A major controversy has developed in Edinburgh over a huge development that was allowed to go ahead in the World Heritage Site without planning permission. The London-based event organisers Underbelly have a contract with Edinburgh’s city council who are paying them a reported £800,000 to stage a…
See Urbanisation as a Positive – or Fail
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 11 July 2011. A third of the world’s people are on the move, says Billy Cobbett, the Manager of Cities Alliance. Addressing the World Planning Schools Congress in Perth, Western Australia, Mr. Cobbett called for planners to transform the current wave of urbanisation into a sustainable…
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…
Buildings of Empire
Posted September 1, 2014 by cliffhague & filed My summer holiday reading has been “Buildings of Empire” by Ashley Jackson. As the title suggests, this is a grand tour around landmark examples of the built environment legacy of the British Empire. Twelve fluently written chapters take us from Dublin Castle to the iconic Raffles Hotel in Singapore, before returning the…
Nexit? Netherlands exit – and an unconsidered worst case-scenario
This Guest Blog was first posted in 2016. How might Brexit impact on the EU? Will the Netherlands be next? David Evers scratches the scabs. This Guest Blog is contributed by David Evers from the Netherlands Environmental Protection Agency. The views expressed are his own, and not those of the Agency or of ESPON, for…