Kafui Attoh | School of Professional Studies, Graduate Center of the City University of New York (original) (raw)
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Papers by Kafui Attoh
America's mass transit systems are in a sorry state, and only a tiny minority of Americans ma... more America's mass transit systems are in a sorry state, and only a tiny minority of Americans makes use of them. For Kafui Attoh America's transit is "idiotic" in two ways: in the sense that it is stupid to have not invested more in it, and in the way it isolates those unable to use cars, excluding them from urban public ...
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Wa... more This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Washington, D.C. region. Drawing on the field of labor geography, we document the collective and inherently spatial conditions of laboring under and through new technologies for three years prior to, and six months after, a strike by Uber drivers in May 2019. In doing so, we explore what Uber’s platform means for the production, accumulation, and contestation of power. We argue that the big innovation of this platform is the creation of a “just-in-place” worker. Akin to those materials for assembly lines that arrived just-in-time for production, so too do drivers end up in just the right place for Uber’s services to be offered. We also argue that Uber’s attempts to keep its workers “just-in-place,” which generally isolate and disempower drivers, can actually enable new modes of organization. At a D.C. airport, drivers who were emplaced in a parking lot overcame one of the fundamental condi...
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team o... more In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team of 10 engineers, the new service provided a select number of cities access to Uber’s vast trove of transportation data. One of the first cities to partner with Uber on this initiative was Washington, DC. Playing directly to the city’s longstanding “smart city” aspirations, the initiative was greeted warmly by city officials eager to market the region as a symbol of data-driven urban growth and smart technology. Largely missing from this response, however, was any mention of Uber drivers themselves. Over the course of the paper, and drawing on 40 interviews conducted with Washington, DC-based Uber drivers, we examine the labor conditions that we argue are central to the production of Uber’s smart data. Beyond placing labor more centrally in critiques of the smart city, the paper suggests that the experience of Uber drivers offers us a window into the type of smart city on offer. As we argue, the city that emerges from our interviews is less a city defined by data-driven growth, than it is a city defined by alienation and isolation.
Georgetown University, 2019
Class war and urban mass transit
Automation in the transit industry
...if Marx and Engels rode the bus...
Political studies association …, 2010
Progress in Human Geography, 2011
Drafts by Kafui Attoh
This memo shows that while Poughkeepsie's newly launched transit system may mark an improvement i... more This memo shows that while Poughkeepsie's newly launched transit system may mark an improvement in late night service, it marks an overall decline in service as measured in terms of frequency, mileage, and service to public housing. In addition to providing a more robust analysis of how the previous and current systems compare, the memo ends with four recommendations. These include: 1) reinstating service to the Thurgood Marshall Terraces, and the northside more generally 2) restoring if not increasing frequency on all city routes (especially on CL) 3) rethinking the priorities of both CN/CO routes-namely adding service to areas with a high density of Section 8 housing, and lastly, 4) recalculating the timetables on the CM route so as to reduce wait time at Innis and Main. Under the newly establish system, residents traveling from points north (ex. Hudson Gardens, Poughkeepsie Commons etc.) to Market and Main, not only must transfer buses-from the CM to the CL (a bus transfer was previously unnecessary for this trip), but they must endure an inordinate wait time at Innis and Main.
Journal Articles by Kafui Attoh
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2020
This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Wa... more This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Washington, D.C. region. Drawing on the field of labor geography, we document the collective and inherently spatial conditions of laboring under and through new technologies for three years prior to, and six months after, a strike by Uber drivers in May 2019. In doing so, we explore what Uber's platform means for the production, accumulation, and contestation of power. We argue that the big innovation of this platform is the creation of a "just-in-place" worker. Akin to those materials for assembly lines that arrived just-in-time for production, so too do drivers end up in just the right place for Uber's services to be offered. We also argue that Uber's attempts to keep its workers "just-in-place," which generally isolate and disempower drivers, can actually enable new modes of organization. At a D.C. airport, drivers who were emplaced in a parking lot overcame one of the fundamental conditions of the Uber workplace: socio-spatial atomization. The airport became a space in which the "just-in-place" worker could, at least for a time, challenge such emplacement and exercise a form of collective worker agency by reworking Uber's dynamic pricing system.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2019
In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team o... more In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team of 10 engineers, the new service provided a select number of cities access to Uber's vast trove of transportation data. One of the first cities to partner with Uber on this initiative was Washington, DC. Playing directly to the city's longstanding "smart city" aspirations, the initiative was greeted warmly by city officials eager to market the region as a symbol of data driven urban growth and smart technology. Largely missing from this response, however, was any mention of Uber drivers themselves. Over the course of the paper, and drawing on 40 interviews conducted with Washington, DC-based Uber drivers, we examine the labor conditions that we argue are central to the production of Uber's smart data. Beyond placing labor more centrally in critiques of the smart city, the paper suggests that the experience of Uber drivers offers us a window into the type of smart city on offer. As we argue, the city that emerges from our interviews is less a city defined by data driven growth, than it is a city defined by alienation and isolation.
America's mass transit systems are in a sorry state, and only a tiny minority of Americans ma... more America's mass transit systems are in a sorry state, and only a tiny minority of Americans makes use of them. For Kafui Attoh America's transit is "idiotic" in two ways: in the sense that it is stupid to have not invested more in it, and in the way it isolates those unable to use cars, excluding them from urban public ...
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Wa... more This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Washington, D.C. region. Drawing on the field of labor geography, we document the collective and inherently spatial conditions of laboring under and through new technologies for three years prior to, and six months after, a strike by Uber drivers in May 2019. In doing so, we explore what Uber’s platform means for the production, accumulation, and contestation of power. We argue that the big innovation of this platform is the creation of a “just-in-place” worker. Akin to those materials for assembly lines that arrived just-in-time for production, so too do drivers end up in just the right place for Uber’s services to be offered. We also argue that Uber’s attempts to keep its workers “just-in-place,” which generally isolate and disempower drivers, can actually enable new modes of organization. At a D.C. airport, drivers who were emplaced in a parking lot overcame one of the fundamental condi...
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team o... more In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team of 10 engineers, the new service provided a select number of cities access to Uber’s vast trove of transportation data. One of the first cities to partner with Uber on this initiative was Washington, DC. Playing directly to the city’s longstanding “smart city” aspirations, the initiative was greeted warmly by city officials eager to market the region as a symbol of data-driven urban growth and smart technology. Largely missing from this response, however, was any mention of Uber drivers themselves. Over the course of the paper, and drawing on 40 interviews conducted with Washington, DC-based Uber drivers, we examine the labor conditions that we argue are central to the production of Uber’s smart data. Beyond placing labor more centrally in critiques of the smart city, the paper suggests that the experience of Uber drivers offers us a window into the type of smart city on offer. As we argue, the city that emerges from our interviews is less a city defined by data-driven growth, than it is a city defined by alienation and isolation.
Georgetown University, 2019
Class war and urban mass transit
Automation in the transit industry
...if Marx and Engels rode the bus...
Political studies association …, 2010
Progress in Human Geography, 2011
This memo shows that while Poughkeepsie's newly launched transit system may mark an improvement i... more This memo shows that while Poughkeepsie's newly launched transit system may mark an improvement in late night service, it marks an overall decline in service as measured in terms of frequency, mileage, and service to public housing. In addition to providing a more robust analysis of how the previous and current systems compare, the memo ends with four recommendations. These include: 1) reinstating service to the Thurgood Marshall Terraces, and the northside more generally 2) restoring if not increasing frequency on all city routes (especially on CL) 3) rethinking the priorities of both CN/CO routes-namely adding service to areas with a high density of Section 8 housing, and lastly, 4) recalculating the timetables on the CM route so as to reduce wait time at Innis and Main. Under the newly establish system, residents traveling from points north (ex. Hudson Gardens, Poughkeepsie Commons etc.) to Market and Main, not only must transfer buses-from the CM to the CL (a bus transfer was previously unnecessary for this trip), but they must endure an inordinate wait time at Innis and Main.
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2020
This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Wa... more This paper examines the socio-spatial dynamics of worker agency in the platform economy in the Washington, D.C. region. Drawing on the field of labor geography, we document the collective and inherently spatial conditions of laboring under and through new technologies for three years prior to, and six months after, a strike by Uber drivers in May 2019. In doing so, we explore what Uber's platform means for the production, accumulation, and contestation of power. We argue that the big innovation of this platform is the creation of a "just-in-place" worker. Akin to those materials for assembly lines that arrived just-in-time for production, so too do drivers end up in just the right place for Uber's services to be offered. We also argue that Uber's attempts to keep its workers "just-in-place," which generally isolate and disempower drivers, can actually enable new modes of organization. At a D.C. airport, drivers who were emplaced in a parking lot overcame one of the fundamental conditions of the Uber workplace: socio-spatial atomization. The airport became a space in which the "just-in-place" worker could, at least for a time, challenge such emplacement and exercise a form of collective worker agency by reworking Uber's dynamic pricing system.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2019
In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team o... more In 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. launched a new service called Uber Movement. Designed by a team of 10 engineers, the new service provided a select number of cities access to Uber's vast trove of transportation data. One of the first cities to partner with Uber on this initiative was Washington, DC. Playing directly to the city's longstanding "smart city" aspirations, the initiative was greeted warmly by city officials eager to market the region as a symbol of data driven urban growth and smart technology. Largely missing from this response, however, was any mention of Uber drivers themselves. Over the course of the paper, and drawing on 40 interviews conducted with Washington, DC-based Uber drivers, we examine the labor conditions that we argue are central to the production of Uber's smart data. Beyond placing labor more centrally in critiques of the smart city, the paper suggests that the experience of Uber drivers offers us a window into the type of smart city on offer. As we argue, the city that emerges from our interviews is less a city defined by data driven growth, than it is a city defined by alienation and isolation.