Kategorie: Original Blogs CliffHague.com
-
World Urban Forum 9 – A missed opportunity for UK
The recent World Urban Forum was an opportunity to show UK engagement with urbanisation as a global issue. It was missed. The UK remains myopic about the opportunities and challenges of the urbanisation of the planet. We may fret about the lack of affordable housing in London, or get agitated about barn conversions in the…
-
Urban expansion, public space and heritage
Today at the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur I went into three events, which spanned a wide range of themes and places.Each in its own way provoked thoughts. The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community has been working over a period of years now on developing a method for planning urban extensions in medium -sized…
-
What’s new about the New Urban Agenda?
South Africa is engaging fully with the New Urban Agenda, and posing some fundamental questions about what it means to be a planner in today’s world. Confession: I only went into one session at the World Urban Forum today. Lest it seems that I was skipping classes, let me explain. A lot of what goes…
-
One Belt One Road – spatial planning at global scale?
At the recent Innovation Circle Network conference I spoke about China’s One Belt One Road vision. This blog sketches and comments on this ambitious transnational project. In January 2017 the East Wind arrived in London. The freight train’s journey had taken 16 days and covered 12,000kms from when it left China, halving the time a similar maritime…
-
How will Brexit affect Ireland?
The EU has rightly made the issue of Ireland a central element of the Brexit negotiations. What might be the territorial impact of creating an external border between Ireland and Northern Ireland? A cross-border conference in Dundalk, organised by RTPI, brought a sharp focus on the challenges facing border communities in Ireland as a result…
-
Saving Town Centres – experience from The Netherlands
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) pointed to “ a new shopper mindset“,…
-
Stockholm My Love – the redemptive potential of a city
A new film reflects on Stockholm’s modernist architecture and public spaces, showing how experiencing places can contribute to wellbeing. The cinema has made icons of some cities. The global reach of Hollywood means that we are all familiar with the streets and suburbs of Los Angeles or the tramscapes of San Francisco. Woody Allen and…
-
Civic concern in Edinburgh over World Heritage Site
Citizens in Edinburgh are voicing concerns at the way the capital city’s built environment and greenspaces are being managed. A staggering 3,188 objections have been lodged in opposition to a planning application to build a hotel in and around the former Royal High School building that sits on the south side of Calton Hill, at…
-
Smart Cities, governance and urban transport
How can cities in the rapidly urbanising world benefit from Smart City approaches to urban management? I am just back from my second visit to Luanda, the capital of Angola. I was running a workshop there that was wrapping up a Smart Cities project that is part of the UK Government’s Prosperity Programme. The brochure produced…
-
Luanda: The transformation of an African city
I recently visited Luanda, Angola’s capital, to deliver workshops on sustainable development and urban planning. I was able to gain a first hand experience of the dramatic and controversial changes in the city. At something over 5 million people, Luanda is now one of Africa’s major metropolitan areas. While every city follows its own historical…