Co-Founder, Living Maps
Phil is the co-founder of Living Maps, a network of academics, artists and activists concerned to develop a creative and critical approach to the social mapping of the city. He is developing a Citizens Atlas of London and working on an HLF-funded project, The Groundbreakers, a series of audio trails around the Olympic Park telling its back story.
Since the 1980s he has carried out ethnographic research examining the impact of structural and demographic change on the cultures and communities of East London with a focus on issues of class, race, and urban regeneration.
He completed a five-year study into the local impact of the Olympics; On the Wrong Side of the Track?: East London and the Post Olympics, published in May 2013 to widespread acclaim. A follow-up study was edited with Paul Watt on London 2012 and the Post Olympic City: A Hollow Legacy, published in 2017 by Palgrave Macmillan.
Phil blogs at www.philcohenworks.com