Professor of Property Development Studies, University of Sheffield
John is Professor of Property Development, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield, and a Chartered Surveyor and Chartered Town Planner.
He is a co-investigator in Sheffield's Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature project, where he is working on the estimation of the costs and benefits that arise from green/blue interventions, how these are distributed among the various stakeholders and the implications for more effective planning, design and implementation of such interventions.
More broadly, John’s research covers the structure and behaviour of property markets and their relations with wider economies and state institutions. Key interests are in property development and investment, including portfolio management and yield determination; the role of property in the process of urban and regional development and regeneration; and the use of property-based economic instruments – such as impact fees and planning agreements – to fund the provision of affordable housing and infrastructure.
He also has expertise in urban governance, especially the development and implementation of policy related to local economic development, area management and renewal, and temporary informal uses of vacant urban land. A particular focus of his work is project appraisal, including the calculative practices used in property development, investment and valuation. An important aspect of this is his work on the evaluation of green infrastructure investment, its impact on land and property values, its influence on the decisions of property developers and investors, and its contribution to the quality of the urban built environment.
John has extensive experience of interdisciplinary and international research funded by ESRC, EPSRC, UK central government departments and the EU. John has over 275 publications, including 53 refereed papers in leading journals, 19 books/chapters and 68 research reports. A former Editor of Regional Studies, he is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Property Research, the Journal of European Real Estate Research and of Town Planning Review, and is an Editor of the Wiley/RICS book series on ‘Real Estate Issues’. In 2010, John was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences for his contribution to the discipline.
How the neoliberal obsession with valuing nature changes our understanding of it
Dec 04, 2018 16:34 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics Nature
Over the last decade, an industry has developed that values different aspects of nature in different ways. Its growth has been underpinned by the argument that, in a neoliberal world where the market is the dominant...
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