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:
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…
How setting national climate budgets obscure the need to really tackle the climate emergency
This item was first published in July 2019. Why is the French Government failing to meet its own goals on limiting CO2 emissions? A blog by Pierre Calame provides insights into why France is not meeting its targets on energy and the climate emergency. The messages apply to many other countries too. Calame points out that successive…
ERASMUS + the young Eyes project
Erasmus+ http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/index_en.htm is an EU programme supporting education, training, youth and sport. In 2015 Cliff worked with the partners in the Young Eyes project to develop a set of Guidelines for the delivery of the project.
New housing floorspace will be the area of the Netherlands by 2025
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 17 July 2012. The next generation is going to witness a staggering amount of new urban development as the world’s economic centre of gravity shifts towards Asia. Cities in both developed and rapidly urbanising countries need professional planning if they are to prosper. Companies…
A Sense of Place – new futures for Public Markets
Ideas for reviving flagging public markets as places to shop, eat and meet were presented by experts at an international conference in Barcelona this week. With many public markets struggling to adapt to changing patterns of shopping the need for design and innovation has never been stronger, and the answer lies in creating a sense…
Territorial insight: Where to focus what types of investments
Territorial insight: Where to focus what types of investments: ESPON Results by early 2013, Second ESPON 2013 Synthesis Report (2013) https://www.espon.eu/topics-policy/publications/synthesis-reports/second-espon-2013-synthesis-report Co-author.
The Housing Market Crisis in Sun-Belt US Cities
his blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 14 June 2011. After spending a month in the USA (the reason for the lack of recent blogs) I have really begun to grasp the scale of the housing market crisis there. The sub-prime US mortgage market triggered the global economic crisis in 2007-8.…
Planning and politics
This first appeared in Planning on 29 November 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Haymarket Publications.
Saving Town Centres – experience from The Netherlands
This blog was first posted in 2017. A new study looks at what the Dutch have been doing to revitalise the centres of medium-sized towns. The plight of town centres, particularly in medium-sized towns, across Europe and North America, has been a concern to planners and local politiicans for a generation. In England, the Portas Report (2011)…
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…