Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Geddes and Fellini – Place, Work and Folk

    Geddes and Fellini – Place, Work and Folk

  • For inclusive planning confront exclusion

    For inclusive planning confront exclusion

    To make places inclusive, planners and placemakers need to understand exclusion. ‘Make cities and human settlements safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable’. SDG 11 set a clear path forward for planners. Making planning an inclusive process is a central theme of the New Urban Agenda. The RTPI has called for an ‘inclusive recovery’ from the Covid pandemic, saying that this…

  • The future of our urban parks and greenspaces

    The future of our urban parks and greenspaces

    The value of parks needs to be rethought in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. “People are now beginning to see the value of parks.” This was a central message from New York City Parks Convenor Mitchell Silver, during our public conversation on Zoom on 25 June 2020, as part of the Cockburn Association campaign…

  • Unfilled posts and poorly targeted employment initiatives

    Unfilled posts and poorly targeted employment initiatives

    My column in Planning in 1987, has a contemporary feel in 2020 as issues of mass unemployment and Council cuts come to the fore once again. A Director of Planning post left unfilled to save money. Doing away with planning. Why I gave up on RTPI Council. The interplay of place and class in labour markets. This…

  • Participation?

    How to have your say in the planning system. A scandal has broken out over a controversial decision by the English planning minister. As has been widely reported in the UK, the Minister, Robert Jenrick,  overturned the recommendations of the independent Planning Inspector and awarded a consent for a £1billion 1,500-apartment, 44-storey development in London.…

  • Parks, Heritage and the Future of Cities: my talks next week

    A busy week ahead. I have a number of online events coming up, which may be of interest to followers of this website. On Friday morning, 19 June, I am speaking in the Institute of Historic Building Conservation Virtual School.  The theme of this event is Old Towns: New Futures – Heritage Reflections and Speculations from a Global…

  • The Square: the guilt and fragility of a comfortable urban life

    The Square: the guilt and fragility of a comfortable urban life

    The film The Square is about more than the excesses of contemporary art. It explores the conditions on which people are able to live in cities. In his film The Square, director Ruben Östlunddissects the contemporary urban condition. Certainly squares are geometrical shapes, and the geometrical motif is one of several images and sounds that carefully knit this film…

  • Bait movie – Nautical gentrification

    Bait movie – Nautical gentrification

    The British film Bait, released in 2019, should be of interest to planners and urbanists internationally for the issues it raises about community and economic development. Bait is set in a fishing village in Cornwall, one of the poorest regions in England. After 20 years of regional development funding from the EU, GDP per capita remains only 68% of…

  • Amsterdam and AESOP 1987 (Part 2)

    Amsterdam and AESOP 1987 (Part 2)

    Local history and a trip to a Planning Committee meeting. The second part of my Diary as published in Planning on 11 December 1987. To read the first part of this article, please click here. The article is reproduced by kind permission of the editor of Planning. To seem more of my old columns in Planning, please go to the…

  • Amsterdam, Formation of AESOP and a trip to a Planning Committee

    Amsterdam, Formation of AESOP and a trip to a Planning Committee

    My „Diary“ article in 1987 records the formation of the Association of European Schools of Planning, AND of the Scottish Torquay United Supporters Club (which has not proved as long-lasting). The article was first published in Planning on 11 December 1987 and is reproduced with the kind permission of the editor. It has two parts, so to…

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