Articles in the Planning & regeneration category:
When I started writing a column in ‘Town & Country Planning’ in 1986 it was called ‘Futurework’ because I reported on new initiatives and developments in the world of work, particularly amongst co-operatives, initiatives in local economic development, and the gradually emerging ‘green economy’. The column’s title was taken from a book of the same […]
The Summer’s warm sunshine and cool breezes have brought people out into the street and the parks in numbers, and it has been a rather joyful experience after what has seemed like an interminable winter. Flowers, blossom, plants and birds have responded in kind; a profusion of sound and colour. Seeing children outside enjoying the […]
There is a long tradition of books about what is wrong with conventional economics; ‘Limits to Growth’ for example, was published 45 years ago. The intervening years have seen quite a few of their ideas absorbed into mainstream thinking and some of their prophesies come to fruition. But It is a cause of frustration to […]
In the latter part of the recent General Election campaign the Green Party paraded around central London holding placards with giant question marks on them. It was a way of drawing attention to their question ‘where has debate on the environment gone in this election?’ It is not an unfair question in a context where […]
In 2012 the anthropologist Daniel Miller published a book called Consumption and its consequences. For those not familiar with him he is something of an expert on the way we relate to ‘stuff’- other books of his, and he is prolific, include The comfort of things and Stuff. He is interested in exploring the different […]
The ‘sharing economy’ has become a popular concept recently. It is a term with multiple meanings and depending on one’s viewpoint is one of the positive outcomes of the digital economy and globalisation, or one of its most negative and destructive manifestations. Essentially it is a term applied to a range of short term part-time […]
I visited New Lanark, social reformer Robert Owen’s experimental village on the banks of the upper Clyde in the summer. It is almost forty years since I was last there. The magic of the place hasn’t changed but the ‘visitor experience’ certainly has. New Lanark now gets almost half a million visitors a year – […]
Have you heard of Strava? Nor had I until a couple of months ago and I’m a fairly keen cyclist. In truth if you are familiar with it you are likely to be young, tech savvy, and a keen runner or cyclist. Strava is an app developed, where else, in San Francisco, for athletes, runners […]
The ‘Northern Powerhouse’ has caught the political imagination even if there is some debate about whether the financial resources to turn it into reality are really going to appear from the Treasury. The English devolution agendas post the Scottish referendum, and the desire to create poles of economic, cultural and political influence in England outside […]
I recently came across a book that had been presented as an end of year prize to a student at the Oxford School of Technology, Art and Commerce. It was signed by the principal, one JH Brookes. Although I recognised the name, it made me realise just how little I knew about the person or […]
I am a regular columnist for several magazines, some for many years, but some of what I write has a wider audience than they reach. I also guest-blog in various places. The articles here are a mixture of these blogs and other published writing. I will try to post here every 3-4 weeks. Hope you find all this stimulating and do respond!
I'm aiming to photograph everybody who lives on Divinity Road, a diverse street in East Oxford, by the end of 2019. Take a look at the work in progress
