Martin Murray

Martin Murray is a professor in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. He began his academic career as sociologist with a strong foundation in urban geography. His current research engages the fields of urban studies and planning, global urbanism, cultural geography, distressed urbanism, development, historical sociology, and African studies.

Professor Murray has completed two books on city building and spatial politics in Johannesburg after apartheid. His current research focuses on two fields of inquiry: first, the trajectories of global urbanism at the start of the 21st century; and second, the turn toward master-planned, holistically-designed “private cities” built from scratch, especially those currently under construction or in the planning stages in urban Africa.