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:
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…
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 community – then and now? Ken Loach’s film Kes will be familiar to many, since it was one of the most acclaimed British films of the 1960s and has continued to get airings ever since. It tells…
Lessons in Community Planning from Australia
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 1 August 2011. The Localism Bill in England is creating new Neighbourhood Development Plans. The bill will also provide powers to communities to bring forward a ‘community right to build’. So this is a good time to distil key messages from experiences with community…
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…
Building resilient cities
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 24 August 2012. I should have been in Abuja this week to speak at the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners conference on “Building Resilient Cities”. Due to lack of time to get a visa, I could not make it. However, I did write a…
A World Viewtime-line of planning over the past century: Part 2
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…
Europe’s Neighbourhood from a Territorial Perspective
Europe’s Neighbourhood from a Territorial Perspective, Report from the ESPON Internal Seminar in Paphos, Cyprus 5-6 December 2012 (2013) https://www.espon.eu/news-events/espon-2006-2013-events/espon-2013/internal-seminars/espon-internal-seminar-0 . Co-author.
Plan Verde – Mexico City’s Climate Change Strategy
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 20 February 2012. In June the Rio +20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development will be held. Few will place much confidence in the capacity of national governments to drive forward an inclusive and environmental agenda for the world, as happened at Rio in 1992. Rather, the…
Rural links vital for sustainable cities
The increasing global emphasis on the cities must not obscure the importance of rural areas and their links to cities. This is the argument in a valuable thoughtpiece by Christine Platt, Past President of the Commonwealth Association of Planners in reflecting on the preparations for the Habitat III summit in Quito in October 2016. Reflecting…
The Square: the guilt and fragility of a comfortable urban life
The film The Square is about more than the excesses of contemporary art. It explores the conditions on which people are able to live in cities. In his film The Square, director Ruben Östlund dissects the contemporary urban condition. Certainly squares are geometrical shapes, and the geometrical motif is one of several images and sounds that carefully knit this…