He was awarded the William Alonso Prize of the Regional Science Association in 2011 for his book Cities and Complexity, the same prize a second time for his book The New Science of Cities in 2017–2018, the University Consortium GIS Research Award in 2012,[4] and the Lauréat Prix International de Géographie Vautrin Lud, the so-called 'Nobel for geography', in 2013.

He went to the University of Manchester (1962–1966) where he studied Town and Country Planning gaining the BA degree with First Class Honours in 1966.

[7] He began his academic career in the University of Manchester in 1966, where he was appointed an assistant lecturer in town and country planning.

During this time he spent one year as a visiting assistant professor of transport planning in the department of civil engineering in the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

[12] His research has focussed on the development of analytical methods and computer models for simulating the structure of cities and regions.

[15] This work established the idea that cities might be regarded as the outcome of self-similar fractal processes generating structure from the bottom up.

[18] ties many of the ideas together, developing the notion that it is flows rather than locations that are key to an understanding not only of cities but also the processes for their design and planning.