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:
Programmes! Programmes! Football and Life from Wartime to Lockdown
My new book looks at my life and times through the prism of football programmes. Programmes! Programmes! Football and Life from Wartime to Lockdown is a thinly autobiographical account of my generation who grew up in the aftermath of World War II. Football was central to my childhood and has remained a passion. Looking through my…
How do you measure success in caring for the past?
It’s been a busy summer. In particular I have been involved in work on “measuring success” for Scotland’s Historic Environment Strategy. As Chair of the Built Environment Forum Scotland I am chairing a “workstream” on this topic, with a brief to report to the Scottish Government and to the historic environment sector by the end…
Should gentrification be a concern for planning?
Gentrification is an issue in cities across the world, but urban planning systems are ill-equipped to deal with it. This blog was first posted in October 2016. When modern planning systems were first constructed, the word “gentrification “ did not exist. It was coined by the sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964 (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab/news/ruth-glass-seminar). She explained how…
2011: A Review
Urban This blog was first posted on the Planning Resource website on 16 December 2011. Looking at planning and economic development from a global perspective, 2011 was a year that posed more questions than it answered. At the level of headlines, there was little to raise the spirits or to make you confident that the…
Best ways to enhance Edinburgh
I gave the Cockburn Association annual lecture in Edinburgh on 27 October 2016. I have now written it up and you can read it. The Cockburn Association was formed in 1875 and can claim to be the oldest civic association in the world. It is a pleasure and an honour for me to be its Chair and…
A week in Czechoslovakia July 1989
This piece was first published in Planning 21 July 1989 and is reproduced by kind permission of Haymarket Publications. Because it ran over 2 pages it has to be reproduced here as two separate items The “Diary” tells of a week spent in meetings with planners in what was then Czechoslovakia. It was written just…
Territories finding a New Momentum
Territories finding a New Momentum: Evidence for Policy Development, Growth and Investment, Third ESPON Synthesis Report (2014) Co-author. https://www.espon.eu/topics-policy/publications/synthesis-reports/third-espon-2013-synthesis-report
Comparing Scotland’s towns
This morning I attended the launch of a new open-access web tool that lets you analyse and compare towns in Scotland. It is easy to use and has great potential. Understanding Scottish Places (USP) is designed for use by both professionals and citizens. it covers the 479 places in Scotland with populations of 1000 or more, and…
Dark Age Ahead – Europe and the EU 2030
In 2004, David Evers, Ed Dammers and Aldert de Vries wrote a “doomsday scenario” for a disintegrating EU in 2030. It was never published. It is now. David Evers, Ed Dammers and Aldert de Vries wrote this dystopian scenario in 2004 as part of their work in a spatial scenarios project exploring futures for Cohesion Policy. It…