Urban Development in the Age of Uber: contingent labor, model policies, and a deteriorating public transit system
Funding period: 1 May 2018 – 1 May 2021
Type of funding:
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
Dr. Katie Wells is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. She is a geographer whose current work focuses on the nature of contingent labor in cities, the practices of smart city governance, and the future of urban infrastructure. In a case study about the emergence of Uber’s chauffeur services in Washington, D.C, she is documenting the social and economic effects of these new on-demand services on workers, on policymakers, and on public transit systems in one city over an extended period. This research examines the tensions between the promises of technological innovations on the one hand and the responsibility, on the other hand, to develop urban infrastructure that supports social wellbeing.
kw731@georgetown.edu | https://georgetown.academia.edu/KatieJWells | @KatieJWells