Making Planning Work: A guide to approaches and skills (2006)
The Development of Planning Thought: A Critical Perspective
Regional and Local Economic Development
Place Identity, Participation and Planning
Book-Programmes! Programmes!: Football Programmes from War-Time to Lockdown
Programmes! Programmes!: Football Programmes from War-Time to Lockdown
Czechoslovakia July 1989 - Trabants, Master Plans and Historic Buildings (2)
Written by Cliff Hague
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 a few months before the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 which swept away the communist regime. The diary provides a first hand account of the tribulations of day to day life at the time which undermined the regime. It also shows how planners were working in the strange period of reform under perestroika led by Gorbachov and pressed on a reluctant Czechoslovak administration.
The use of planning and built environment design to boost public health is attracting growing attention. Therefore the publication of a major, international research-based compendium is much to be welcomed. Water, crime, obesity, transport and food are amongst the many topics covered. Kevin McCloud, British designer and TV presenter has said “I’d like to see every politician, planner and developer given a copy.”
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 paper and this blog is a summary of it. It reviews current thinking about the idea of resilient cities. This is a theme I have explored in previous blogs on this site.
I have just spent a few days enjoying the redwood forests of Northern California. Wandering amidst these magnificent trees was only possible because of the efforts of committed conservationists over the last century. I first saw the redwoods in 1980. That year we did a house exchange with the City Planner of Eugene, Oregon. This enabled me to see something of the workings of planning and zoning in this part of the US. We also travelled up and down the spectacular coast of Oregon. Riding once more on the iconic coastal Highway 101, what differences do I see?
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.
Almost half of the children in New Delhi are suffering irreversible lung damage because of the toxic levels of air pollution in the city. A number of factors make children particularly vulnerable to air pollution. They have lower immunity than adults and their respirtory tracts are easier for pollutnants to penetrate. Also particulate matter is concentrated at lower levels above the ground, so young children in particular are breathing in the worst air.
The new ESPON 2020 programme is offering three permanent jobs to join the team in their Luxembourg office. The posts are for a Project Expert with responsibility for Data, IT and the ESPON Toolbox; another Project Expert for Policy and Projects, and finally a Lawyer with expertise in European and Luxembourg law. The closing date is 16 June. For details email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Planning is being used in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine to deny Palestinian communites fair opportunities for development. The practices undertaken in the name of "good planning" actually amount to a denial of administrative justice. These are important findings from an International Advisory Board of experienced planners that it was my privilege to chair.
The Latvian Presidency of the EU has been pushing the case that towns have an important role to play in territorial cohesion. Key questions are what are the development ppotentials of towns and how can these best be realised? To this end, the ESPON programme has produced a commentary highlighting the main types of urban areas and towns across Europe.
As ever more trips are made it becomes harder and harder to move around cities, even when money is invested in transport infrastructure. Across the globe, but especially in the rapidly urbanising mega cities of the global south, cities are facing a crisis of accessibility. Quite simply, unsustainable forms of urban transport are no longer working.
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Tuvalu from the air (photo courtesy of Dr.Julia Edwards)
This blog provides a front line report from Tuvalu, a small island state in the Pacific. Tuvalu is going through urbanization on a scale it has never experienced before, and is also struggling to adapt to the impacts of climate change. This remote and tiny place, so far removed from the global cities which are shaping its future, provides a laboratory specimen of the fate of a small island state in today’s world.
In 2009-13 on average 856 persons were displaced from their homes each year in the occupied West Bank of Palestine, and 499 Palestinian-owned structures were demolished in each year by the Israeli authorities. Now research funded by the UK's Department for International Development has put a price on the economic damage this does.
Spending a couple of days in Tel Aviv has enabled me to walk through the part of the town that was designed by Sir Patrick Geddes in the 1920s. The legacy of that plan is still evident today in what has become Israel's main gateway city. Can some of Tel Aviv's dynamism be traced back to Geddes vision? What are the lessons for today's planners?
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 serving consumer markets should grasp the significance of the growing urban middle class and its diversity. Urban analysis is increasingly necessary for business success. These are the main messages from a dramatic new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI).