Professor James White

Personal statement:

I am Professor of Planning and Urban Design and Subject Group Co-Lead for Place and Built Environment at the University of Glasgow. Before joining the University of Glasgow in 2012, I studied City and Regional Planning and Urban Design at Cardiff University and then a PhD in Planning at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

My expertise is in the theory and application of design governance and place adaptation in the context of sustainable urban development. I focus is on the tools that planners use to shape the built environment and enhance urban design quality in sustainable ways

Key topic areas of research or interest:

I am interested in planning and development systems, sustainable urban density, housing design quality, retrofitting city centres and high-rise residential development. Currently I am the Principal Investigator of URBAN RETROFIT, an ESRC-funded research project exploring how place-adaptation for net zero can be delivered through existing planning and development systems. URBAN RETROFIT is the headline research project of the Place theme at the ESRC-funded UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence where I am Deputy Director and Place theme lead. I also recently completed the ESRC-funded REPAIR project (Real Estate Adaptation and Innovation within an Integrated Retailing System) as Co-Investigator.

Collaboration opportunities:

I am interested in collaborating with researchers and practitioners working on ‘scaling up’ place adaptation in the built environment with a particular focus on the ways to better connect discrete urban sustainability and green infrastructure interventions through coordinated city-level leadership. I am also interested in growing the network of partners engaged in my ESRC-funded Urban Retrofit project and building connections in the media to communicate with a wider audience on the challenges (and opportunities) that city-scale urban adaptations for net zero present.

Publications:

Are well-designed places possible? A model of design governance intervention in the planning, design and development of new neighbourhoods. Journal of Urban Design: https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2023.2296885

Repurposing retail space: exploring stakeholder relationships. Urban Studies: https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980231178776

Condoland: The Planning, Design and Development of Toronto’s CityPlace. UBC Press (book): https://www.ubcpress.ca/condoland

Averting dead mall syndrome: de-malling and the future of the purpose-built shopping center in large UK cities. Journal of Urban Affairs: https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2023.2239957

Ownership diversity and fragmentation: a barrier to urban centre resilience. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science: https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083221124

Not quite the ‘death of the high street’ in UK city centres: rising vacancy rates and the shift in property use richness and diversity. Cities: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.104124

Planning and the high-rise neighbourhood: debates on vertical cities. Urban Planning: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/6357/2951

The experience economy in UK city centres: a multidimensional and interconnected response to the ‘death of the high street’? Urban Studies: https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980221143043

Design governance, austerity and the public interest: Planning and the delivery of ‘well-designed places’ in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Planning Theory and Practice: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2021.1958911

Beyond design review: collaborating to create well-designed places in Scotland. Journal of Urban Design: https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2018.1529537

Growing in Glasgow: Innovative practices and emerging policy pathways for urban agriculture. Land Use Policy: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.07.056

Toronto’s Vancouverism: developer adaptation, planning responses, and the challenge of design quality. Town Planning Review: https://doi.org/10.3828/tpr.2016.4

Pursuing design excellence: Urban design governance on Toronto’s waterfront. Progress in Planning: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2015.06.001

Future directions in urban design as public policy: reassessing best practice principles for design review and development management. Journal of Urban Design: https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2015.1031212

Smart parcelization and place diversity: reconciling real estate and urban design priorities. Journal of Urban Design: https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2013.824367