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:
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…
Challenges for urban and regional development – Riga and Latvia’s National Development Plan
My previous visits to Riga were in the winter. Fading light on gloomy afternoons, sleet and snow chilling the soul, forcing me to seek the refuge of a warm bar or café. Now I am here in vibrant springtime, with a crescent moon in a crimson night sky after a day of warm sun. Suddenly,…
WUF10 – Global Planning Aid
This blog was posted ahead of the tenth World Urban Forum, in Abu Dhabi 8-13 February 2020. Despite many endorsements ofthe idea for Global Planning Aid at the WUF, it proved not possible to raise the pump-priming funding required to set up a pilot project in Banjul, The Gambia. The CHOGM planned for 2020 was…
Temporary use of vacant spaces and buildings
Whether it’s an old church or the shell of a derelict factory, a gap site or an under-used parking lot, vacant land and buildings are a headache for planners and regeneration professionals. The impacts of vacany stretch beyond the site, creating a sense of decline and blighting neighbourhoods. Yet these left overs can be the…
Training planners to work with informality
Planners on an innovative post-graduate course in Zambia are being trained to understand how informal development operates and how to deliver pro-poor planning. The scale of the challenges in rapidly urbanising African cities is familiar. What is less common is the direct engagement of planning students with the day to day realities of life in…
Young Commonwealth planners win prizes
This item was first posted in September 2018. The Commonwealth Association of Planners has announced the winners of its Young Planners essay competition. The topics addressed by the winners were how to plan for better care of an aging population, and the nature of place-making. The Commonwealth Association of Planners (CAP) have announced that Joanna Patton…
Stores no more? How shops are changing to meet challenges from e-retailing
As e-shopping eats into the markets previously dominated by traditional shops and stores, what will the retail store of the future look like? Are the malls and the arcades a relic of the last century? What does it mean for our towns and cities? A new article on a specialist retailing website suggests that in the USA…
What does the election of Trump mean for planning and the profession?
Guest blogger Klaus Kunzmann shared his thoughts from Potsdam on what a Trump presidency could mean for planning and planners in this blog from 2016. First Brexit, then Trump. The liberal elites in Europe and beyond are shocked. In a brief statement in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine on 10 November Saskia Sassen has expressed her concerns…
1972: The End of an Era?
This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 24 April 2012. This week Planning magazine celebrates its 40th birthday. At this critical juncture, the point where mid-life crisis is supposed to kick in with a vengeance, I thought that I should look back to where I was in 1972, while still taking…
Learning from Oregon
I am just back from spending 3 weeks in Oregon. What can IC members learn from that beautiful part of the world? Oregon in the Pacific North-West of theUSA shares a number of features with the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). 2012-08-30 It is relatively peripheral within the continental land mass and in relation to the major urban…