Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Community Development, University of Massachusetts Boston
Alan is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Community Development who studies urban infrastructure—investment, design, construction, and use—to understand the form, function, and politics of cities across the Global North. He joined the University of Massachusetts, Boston in September 2015 after completing his doctorate in Geography-Urban Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, and attaining degrees from University of California, Santa Cruz (BA), and San Francisco State University (MA).
His scholarship has critiqued the techno-utopian underpinnings of the smart city movement, the public costs of tax incentives for urban-economic development, and the role of digitized surveillance and policing tactics in facilitating large-scale urban redevelopment in the United States. Alan’s current research agenda considers the geography of global infrastructure within and between cities of the North Atlantic as a means of theorizing the urban futures of older, industrial-era regions.
China's 'Silk Road urbanism' is changing cities from London to Kampala – can locals keep control?
Apr 01, 2019 17:25 pm UTC| Insights & Views
A massive redevelopment of the old Royal Albert Dock in East London is transforming the derelict waterfront to a gleaming business district. The project, which started in June 2017, will create 325,000 square metres of...