DCRP Lecture Series: Kafui Attoh

Uber, Public Transit and the Idiocy of the Smart City

Lecture: 5:30 - 7 PM
Location: 112 Wurster Auditorium

With a focus on Washington, DC, the talk explores how cities often uncritically embrace technological innovation and the “sharing economy” to the detriment of their wellbeing and the interests of their working class and most vulnerable residents.

Professor Kafui Attoh received his B.A. from Macalester College and his Ph.D in Geography from Syracuse University. His broad interests are in the political economy of cities, the politics of public space and debates in and around the idea of the “right to the city.” His research has focused on three areas: 1) the role of transit within the political economy of cities;  2) the economic impact of limited access to transportation  on disadvantaged communities and 3) the role of urban social movements (including the labor movement) in shaping mass transit policy. He is the author of Rights in Transit: Public Transportation and the Right to the City in California’s East Bay (University of Georgia Press 2019). His work has appeared in Progress in Human Geography, New Labor Forum, The Journal of Cultural Geography, The Geographical Bulletin, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, Urban Studies, Antipode and Space, and Polity.