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Post-Doc Forschungsvorhaben / Postdoc Research Project
Urban Restructuring in the "Network City"
My post-doctoral research is about cities at the end of the Automobile Age. Put less dramatically, it is about the changing mobility discourses and infrastructure needs in major (post-)industrialized metropolises in the U.S. and Europe at the beginning of the 21st century. We are living at a time of major economic and socio-spatial urban restructuring which is coupled with a complex re-scaling of governance levels. Given the realities of globalization and the advent of the Information Age, together converging in what Manuel Castells has aptly termed the "Rise of the Network Society," metropolitan regions - as well as the people living in them - are challenged to physically readapt to the changing pre-conditions and necessities of urban life. I am interested in the concrete, physical ramifications the advent of this new "Network City" has for metropolitan life and metropolitan form, particularly as it pertains to the changing nature and function of central urban cores. Empirically, my research is currently focused on recent developments in the Los Angeles metro area.