Martin Danyluk, PhD

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

My research follows three main lines. The first examines the global logistics industry and the conflicts surrounding the movement of goods through capitalist supply chains. I focus on the 2016 expansion of the Panama Canal, an infrastructure megaproject that reshaped trade across the Americas. In anticipation, entrepreneurial governments, port authorities, and actors in the shipping, logistics, and real estate industries upgraded infrastructure and forged strategic alliances to capture new flows of trade and value. Drawing on fieldwork in Panama City, Los Angeles, and New York, I trace how these efforts reorganized urban space and intensified struggles over land, labour, and environmental justice.

My second project investigates the financialization of urban infrastructure—the growing ownership of essential public systems by institutional investors. Through a study of Montreal’s Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) rapid-transit system, I analyze how financial and state power have become intertwined in new forms of capital accumulation and urban governance. The REM is more than a transportation project: it is a vehicle for reconfiguring authority and risk, redistributing public resources, and remaking urban environments along financial lines. 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.

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