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:
Gambling on casinos for regeneration: Why Atlantic City is out of luck
Posted November 10, 2014 by cliffhague While in Philadelphia recently for the annual conference of the American Collegiate Schools of Planning I was able to make a trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey, a place famous for its use of casinos as a driver for urban regeneration. As well as walking the famous boardwalk on a rather drab end of…
The future of our urban parks and greenspaces
The value of parks needs to be rethought in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. “People are now beginning to see the value of parks.” This was a central message from New York City Parks Convenor Mitchell Silver, during our public conversation on Zoom on 25 June 2020, as part of the Cockburn Association campaign…
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…
Urban Resilience and South Africa’s metropolitan areas
This blog was first posted on the Planning resource website on 15 August 2011. The recently published report of the State of South Africa’s Cities makes extensive use of the concept of “resilience”. This is a theme that I discussed in a previous blog a couple of months back. However, as far as I know, the South…
Reviving town centres
Look at your town centre as a network of gardens, a promenade, a stage and be prepared to be outrageous. This was the advice given by Julian Dobson to meeting of the Scottish Towns Partnership in Edinburgh. He stressed the need to challenge the existing narratives about town centres which are too often about decline and narrowly…
External expert on ESPON (2013) projects
ESPON 2013 is an applied research programme partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund and partly by the 28 EU member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Its research has built an evidence base to support policy development for territorial cohesion and development. Some of its projects support transnational work amongst networks of…
How can we build capacity in Planning in the Commonwealth?
This blog was first posted on the planning resource website on 3 July 2011. Share Janet Strachan (Commonwealth Secretariat) hears about planning education in Ghana from Dr. Inkoom, while Dr. Lauence Carmichael from University of the West of England swops notes with Dr.Alias Abdullah of Malaysia’s International Islamic University The Maldive Islands: annual increase in…
Nowa Huta – Town Planning and Heroes
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 28 November 2011. Nowa Huta was a showcase development by the communist government in Poland in the 1950s. Today, on a bright, cold central European winter afternoon, I took the bus from the old town of Krakow, and rode out to see the place…
Other European projects
ERASMUS + Erasmus+ http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/index_en.htm is an EU programme supporting education, training, youth and sport. SWECO Urban Futures AB, Sweden http://www.sweco.se/sv/Sweden/ 2013: Case study report on housing regeneration in Wester Hailes, Edinburgh. INTERACT INTERACT is an EU programme that promotes exchange of knowledge and best practices amongst cooperation programmes. TEMPUS The TEMPUS programme supports the modernisation of higher…
Afghanistan’s urban population to double in 15 years
This was first posted in 2015. Around 8 million live in Afghanistan’s cities today, but that number is expected to double by 2030.Yet, like many other rapidly urbanising countries, it has no national urban policy, no housing policy, and local planning is weak. The country remains predominantly rural, with only 1 in 4 living in…