Emeritus Professor, Professor Robert Home

Rob was Reader and Professor in Land Management at Anglia Ruskin University from 2002-2017.

Background

Previously, Rob was Principal Lecturer and Reader in Planning at University of East London, and also Lecturer in the Department of Land Management & Development at the University of Reading. He also held visiting positions at the Universities of Onati (Spain), Stellenbosch & Pretoria (South Africa), Ife, (Nigeria), Copperbelt (Zambia), Haifa (Israel), Kyoto (Japan), and Hong Kong.

Research interests

Rob Home's research interests combine history, law and urban planning, both in the UK and developing countries.

Areas of research supervision

Rob supervised 22 doctoral students to completion, including dissertations on:

• Land reform Bangladesh
• Urban development Zambia
• Land reform Kenya
• Land survey reform Bahrain
• Waqf in Israel/Palestine
• Planning appeal consistency
• Reform of commercial property leases in UK
• REITS in Europe
• Environmental Law in New Zealand
• Economic sovereignty in Aceh, Indonesia
• Sustainability principle in planning appeals
• Humanitarian law Pakistan

He also examined 28 doctorates, including at Universities of South Australia, KTH Stockholm, TU Delft; Pretoria, Free State, National University of Ireland.

Qualifications

• MA (History), Cambridge University
• Diploma (Urban & Regional Planning), Oxford Brookes University
• PhD (Geography), London School of Economics.
• Member of Royal Town Planning Institute 

Memberships, editorial boards

• Editorial board of academic journals: Cities, Planning Perspectives, Planning History.
• Member of International Planning History Society, Right to Development Research Unit (University of Pretoria) and African Union Law Research Network (University of Sussex, UK).
• European Architecture Beyond Europe 2012-15, (EU COST Action).
• Assessor and reviewer for research applications, professorial appointments, articles and book proposals.

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• ODA research project on urban land management in Pakistan
• Land readjustment in Japan, Israel and Lebanon
• DFID research contract on land titling in Africa and the Caribbean
• British Council academic link programmes with South Africa, Bulgaria and Zambia
• Gypsy accommodation assessments for UK local authority consortia
• Participation in three UN Expert Group meetings on Islamic land law, post-disaster land policy, and responsible land administration
• Expert evidence to UK Government Foresight Land Use Futures Project
• South Sudan Urban Land Management Study for UNDP
• Urban land management in Pakistan report for UNDP

Selected recent publications

Books

2013 Of planting and planning: The making of British colonial cities 2nd ed (1st ed 1996) Spon.

2012  Essays in African Land Law and Case Studies in African Land Law Pretoria University Law Press for World Bank.

2004 (with H.Lim) Demystifying The Mystery of Capital: Land Titling in Africa and the Caribbean, Glasshouse Press.

Articles, book chapters

2017 'Global Systems Foundations of the Discipline: Colonial, Post-Colonial and Other Power Structures' in Hein, C. (ed) Routledge Handbook of Planning History.

2017 Deregulating planning control over Britain’s housing stock International Journal of Law and Built Environment

2016 'Urbanism and Master Planning' (with A.D.King) in Bremner, A. (ed) Oxford History of the British Empire: Architecture and Urbanism.

2016 'Squatting and encroachment in British colonial history' in Anders, F. & Sedlmaier A. (eds) Historical Perspectives on Squatting, Routledge Studies in Modern History.

2014 'Legal histories of planning and colonialism' in Oldfield, S. & Parnell, S. (eds) Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South.

2014 Colonial Urban Planning in Anglophone Africa, in Silva, C.N. (ed) Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa. Routledge.

2012 'Colonial Township Laws and Urban Governance in Kenya' Journal of African Law.

2012 'Forced eviction and planning enforcement: the Dale Farm Gypsies', International Journal of Law in the Built Environment.

Recent presentations and conferences

2017 'Land and the right to development in Africa', Conference on Right to Development in Africa (Pretoria, South Africa).

2008 ‘Islamic land law and empowerment of the poor', FIG/WPLA conference (Bergen, Norway).

2005 International workshop convenor on 'Squatters or Settlers?: Rethinking Ownership, Occupation and Use in Land Law' at Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Spain.

Media experience

Television and radio interviews on house-building crisis and Gypsy/traveller accommodation needs.