Guest Columnist: Paul Maginn
A few thoughts from an urban planner on the sex industry and how politics drive more decisions than logic in this significant field of urban development.
Dr. Paul Maginn is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Western Australia; he is the co-editor and co-author of several chapters in the recently published book (Sub)Urban Sexscapes: Geographies and Regulation of the Sex Industry. I asked him to comment on his book and explain why a planner & geographer is so interested in sex work.
At social events whenever we meet someone new for the first time it can be guaranteed that they will ask, “So, what do you do for a living?” In the past, my stock response was generally: “I’m an academic…an urban planner”! The stock replies to this usually range from: “Oh! What does that mean?” to “Oh, that’s nice! I have to go now because there’s my friend over there”. You see, being an academic doesn’t seem to capture too many non-academic peoples’ attention. So nowadays, when I’m asked what…
View original post 1,054 more words
