Katie Mulkowsky
About
Katie is an urban planner, writer and researcher concerned with differential vulnerability to environmental health risks in cities. Drawing on carceral geography, political ecology and urban theory, her PhD research examines participatory planning efforts to re-engineer New York’s criminal and climate justice infrastructure.
Katie is interested in the promises and limits of urban planning to address historically entrenched structural inequalities. Can the technical, power-laden apparatuses of land-use decision making be responsive to the institutional memories held by communities with ties to fraught sites like landfills, prisons or places of tragic incidence like fire or flood? What risks arise when climate change is positioned by practitioners as the impetus to unlock a “resilient” – but potentially exclusionary or accumulative – future?
She has worked for five years as an urban planner in London, with “placemaking” stints across local authorities, business improvement districts and consultancy before becoming Director of Research and Urban Health at Future Places Studio, producing reports on social housing, adaptive reuse and NHS infrastructure for an industry audience. Through public realm design and community engagement, her work sought to address the health risks of vehicle emissions by offering a safer landscape for walking, wheeling, cycling and other creative, social uses of public space.
Katie has an academic background in human geography and discard studies, having crafted a self-designed, interdisciplinary BSc at NYU Gallatin (2019) before her MSc in Regional and Urban Planning Studies at LSE (2020). She is engaged in narrative non-fiction trade writing and journalism on urban health issues.
Provisional thesis title
Renewable Rikers? The political ecology of New York City’s toxic prison-island
Research interests
- Urban political ecology
- Discard studies
- Racial capitalism
- Institutional memory
- Participatory methods
Working conference papers
“Renewable Rikers? Punishment, Population Health and Climate Action on New York City’s Toxic Prison-Island.” Livable Cities: Critiquing the Urban Renaissance. Forthcoming in Manchester, 2026.
Selected writing and journalism
- Breaking Urbanism’s Culture of Silence on Gaza, the City We’ve All Destroyed (Next City, 2025)
- Towns and Cities Inc: Are mayoral development corporations the best tools for urban regeneration? (The Planner, 2025)
- Home Sick: Can planning spring the social housing health trap? (The Planner, 2025)
- From 15-Minute Cities to Freedom Cities, Urban Planners Need to Consider Our Narratives (Next City, 2025)
- Sick City (Aeon Magazine, 2023; also featured as a Longreads pick and named under Best History Writing of 2023 by Bunk History)
Selected industry reports
- Homes for Londoners: A New Agenda for Public Housing (Book with Cecilia Lindström for New London Architecture, 2025)
- Adaptive London: Reusing Existing Buildings (Book for New London Architecture, 2025)
- Health as a place’s competitive advantage (Report for Okana, 2025, presented at Healthy City Design congress)
- No place for placemaking: the impacts of permitted development rights on placemaking, and what they tell us about the government’s planning reforms (Town and Country Planning Association, 2020)
Prizes/awards/scholarships/funding
- ESRC Doctoral Scholarship, UK Research and Innovation, 2025-2029
- Short-Term Archival Research Fellowship, New York Public Library, 2024-2025
- Oram Stott Schlusche Fellowship, full funding to MSc Regional and Urban Planning Studies, LSE Geography and Environment, 2019-2020
- Dean’s Award for Summer Research, NYU Gallatin, 2018
- Gallatin-Africa House Summer Fellowship, New York University, 2018
- Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights, New York University, 2017
- Development Impact Fellowship, NYU Africa House, 2016
Positions held
- Director of Research and Urban Health, Future Places Studio
- Research Fellow, New York Public Library
- Project Officer, Supporting Communities, London Borough of Camden
- Senior Consultant, Momentum Transport Consultancy
- Public Realm Project Manager, Central District Alliance
Supervisors
Professor Austin Zeiderman
Dr Julia Corwin