Martin Danyluk, PhD

I am an urban and economic geographer and an urban planner. My work investigates the ways capitalist dynamics take material form through infrastructure, logistics, and the built environment. I am particularly interested in how economic power shapes urban life, it intersections with other forms of inequality, and how people challenge these arrangements through everyday and collective action.

My research is organized around three main lines of inquiry. The first examines the global logistics industry and the conflicts surrounding the circulation of goods through capitalist supply chains. Focusing on the 2016 expansion of the Panama Canal, I trace how this megaproject served as a catalyst for the transformation of port cities across the Americas. State and industry actors—including entrepreneurial governments, port authorities, and shipping, logistics, and real estate interests—forged strategic alliances to upgrade infrastructure and capture shifting flows of trade. Drawing on fieldwork in Panama City, Los Angeles, and New York, I analyze how these logistical fixes reorganized urban space and intensified struggles over land, labour, and environmental justice.

My second project investigates the financialization of urban infrastructure, focusing on the expanding reach of pension funds and other institutional investors in the ownership of essential public assets and services. Through a study of Montreal’s Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) rapid-transit system, I analyze the entanglement of financial and state power in new strategies of urban governance and capital accumulation. This work interrogates the REM’s role in reconfiguring authority and risk, arguing that such projects function as vehicles for the capture of public resources and transform vital urban services into financial assets. This research is supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec and a Volt-Age Impact Grant.

The third project, a collaboration with David Calnitsky (Western University), examines the relationship between government housing spending and housing security and affordability. Using cross-national datasets and qualitative case studies, we ask whether robust public investment alone can address the housing crisis, or whether deeper transformations in property and finance are necessary. This work is supported by an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Before joining Concordia, I was a policy analyst at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (2023) and an assistant professor of geography at the University of Nottingham (2019–22). I hold a PhD in geography and an MSc in urban planning from the University of Toronto. I am a member of the Ordre des Urbanistes du Québec (OUQ).

URBS 230: Urbanization: Global and Historical Perspectives
URBS 380: Urban and Regional Economic Development
URBS 470: Public Infrastructure Finance for Planners

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Edited Collection

Book Chapter

Book Reviews