A high rise future?
My article in January 2000 looked back and gazed into the future. How well did I do in anticipating change in British cities, planning and higher education?
What does the election of Trump mean for planning and the profession?
Guest blogger Klaus Kunzmann shares his thoughts from Potsdam on what a Trump presidency could mean for planning and planners.
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.
Planning practice and planning education
Here is a column I wrote in The Scottish Planner in 1997. It argued that there should be a tension between planning education and planning practice. What do you think today?
A public services watershed
This first appeared in Planning on 16 January 2004 and is reproduced by kind permission of Planning Resource.
Planning and politics
This first appeared in Planning on 29 November 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Haymarket Publications.
Values or illusions? Planners in difficult times
Seek the truth, speak the truth, defend the truth, live in truth. In my presentation to the closing session of the Association of European Schools of Planning annual congress, I drew on traditional Czech ideals to shape some messages for planners and planning educators. This blog provides an extended version of what I said.
International accreditation of planning degrees
What are the implications of moves to offer international accreditation of planning education, particularly on North-South basis globally? The RTPI has fully accredited a planning programme in Africa for the first time. I chaired the Accreditation Board that visited University of Cape Town last week. On 30 October the Commonwealth Association of Planners will hold a meeting in London that will consider how to build capacity and institutions for planning across the Commonwealth. The following day I will be part of a video-link panel to the annual conference of the American Collegiate Schools of Planning in Cincinnati, where the theme of the panel will be international accreditation.
Do you want fries with that?
This first appeared in Planning on 31 May 2002 and is reproduced by kind permission of Planning Resource.
How can we build capacity in Planning in the Commonwealth?
This blog was first posted on the planning resource website on 3 July 2011.

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 urban population – 5.2%.; maximum height above sea level – 8 metres; rapidly growing tourist industry; four planners; no planning school.. Mozambique: annual increase in urban population 4.1%; proportion of urban population living in slums – over 90%; number of planning schools – 1. Basic facts like these hint at why planning education has become an important issue for the Commonwealth. What can we do to get planners with the right skills in the places where they are most urgently needed?