Formed during the boom years, the UK's localism agenda was intended to act as a brake on development. With investment capital scarce after the global financial crisis, the policy is starting to look unaffordable, with campaigns to make all sorts of projects look like "nationally significant infrastructure projects" (NSIPs) to speed up planning delays and attract funding, as James Patterson-Waterston discusses.
In a quiet London suburb two rival "neighbourhood forums" put forward under new "localism" laws have brought religious and cultural divisions into the light.
The UK Government wants to make it easier to convert offices to residential use, but it runs the risk of turning valuable commercial space into more empty houses.
A new generation of apartment towers are rising above London. Is this the answer to London's housing crisis? And is social cohesion being reinforced or jettisoned at the same time?
The planning failures that led to the breakdown of the slum redevelopment program in Bangalore.
Manila's urban landscape is characterised by ineffective government planning alongside strong, ambitious private sector developers. Arguably, the city will only develop economically if the private sector takes over the role of planning the whole metropolis.
James Patterson-Waterston is a consultant on strategy, urban planning and development at Happold Consulting, with a particular focus on projects in…
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
