Degrees
Professor 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 Urban Studies, Society and Space, Progress in Human Geography, New Labor Forum, The Journal of Cultural Geography, The Geographical Bulletin, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, as well as in a number of other both academic and popular venues.
Recent News
- Ph.D. Syracuse University, 2013 (Geography)
- M.A. Syracuse University, 2008 (Geography)
- B.A. Macalester College, 2006 (Geography and Spanish)
Selected Publications
Books
- Rights in Transit: Public Transportation and the Right to the City in California’s East Bay (2019) Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Courses Taught
- URB 600 Classical Approaches to Urban Studies
- URB 320 Urban Populations and Communities
- URB 651 (Special Topics): The Right to the City
- URB 200 Social Justice and the City
- URB 499 BA Capstone
- URB 699 MA Capstone
Areas of Interest
- Urban Transportation; Public Space; Transportation Labor; Rights
- Political economy of cities
- Public space and urban transportation
- The role of urban social movements in shaping mass transit policy
Grants / Awards
- 2016- 2017 Faculty Fellow and the Center for Place Culture and Politics
- 2015-2017 Ewing Kauffman Foundation Grant “Economic Inequality in the Driver’s Seat: Household Budgets in the On-Demand Mobile Service Sector,” (Co-PI Katie Wells)
Other Affiliations
- Affiliated Faculty in Earth and Environmental Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center
Interviews
- Interview for WORT: https://www.wortfm.org/improving-public-transit-for-a-more-just-and-sustainable-society/
- Interview for NPR’s On the Media: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/rights-transit
- Interview for Jacobin’s The Dig: https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/against-idiocy-with-kafui-attoh/
- Interview for WOSU: https://radio.wosu.org/post/public-transportation-and-equality#stream/0
Selected Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Wells, K; Attoh,K and Cullen,D (2020) “Just-in-Place” labor: Driver Organizing in the Uber Workplace. Environment and Planning
- Attoh, K; Wells, K; Cullen, D (2019) We’re building their data’: Labor, Alienation and Idiocy in the Smart city. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 37 (6) 1007-1024.
- Attoh K, Mitchell, D. and Staeheli, L (2017) The University and the City: The campus as a space of dependence and engagement in the age of austerity. Alternative Routes Intervention
- Attoh, K (2017) Public Transportation and the Idiocy of Urban Life. Urban Studies 54(1) 196-213
- Mitchell, D; Attoh, K and Staehli, L (2016) “Broken Windows is not the Panacea” in Jordan Camp and Christina Heatherton (eds.) Policing the Crisis: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter. New York, NY: Verso.
- Mitchell, D; Attoh, K; Staeheli, L (2015) Whose City? What Politics? Contentious and non-contentious spaces on Colorado’s Front Range. Urban Studies. 52(14) 2633-26488
- Attoh, K (2014) What type of public transit for what type of public? New Labor Forum. 23(2) 58-66.
- Staeheli, L; Attoh, K and Mitchell, D. (2013) Contested Engagement: Youth and the Politics of Citizenship. Space and Polity.77 (1) 88-105.
- Attoh, K. (2012) The Transportation Disadvantaged and The Right to the City in Syracuse, New York. The Geographical Bulletin. 53(1) 1-20
- Attoh, K. (2011) What kind of right is the right to the city? Progress in Human Geography. 35(5) 669-686
Selected Public Scholarship
- Attoh (2020) Protests Lay Bare Structural Racism in Mass Transit Policing. StreetsBlog NYC
- Wells, K; Attoh K, Cullen,D (2020) Shifting Gears: How Uber became an unchecked regulatory power in Washington DC. Points: Data and Society
- Attoh, K (2019) Transportation Justice: from civil rights to the right to the city. Yale Law and Political Economy Blog.
- Wells, K; Attoh,Kand Cullen, D (2018) The Uber Workplace in Washington DC. Kalmanovitz Institute.
- Cullen, D, Attoh, K, Well, K (2018, August 30) Taking Back the Wheel. Dissent Magazine (Online) Attoh, K (2017) “How Poor Public Transit Makes Idiots of us All” London School of Economics: Unites States Politics and Policy Blog.
- Attoh, K and Yang, Siennah (2017) The Transit Situation in Poughkeepsie: A Memo.
- Attoh, K (2015) Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson: An Interview Murphy Institute Blog
- Attoh, K (2014) Dead Labor on a Dead Planet: The Inconvenient Truth of Worker’s Bladders. Monthly Review Zine.
