PORTFOLIO

I'm Katie, a London-based urban planner, writer and researcher specialised in the link between cities and health. I blend narrative-driven “new journalism” with serious, factual reporting to tell human stories about the political-economic forces shaping contemporary places.

I am the Director of Research and Urban Health at Future Places Studio, and a freelance writer outside of work.

My writing has appeared in the likes of Next City, Aeon / Longreads, Vittles, and some industry publications like The Planner, Progressing Planning and Urban Democracy Lab. I’ve contributed to research published by New London Architecture, the Town and Country Planning Association and U.S. Human Rights Network.

I’m currently working on a book project about urban environmental health, supported by an archival fellowship at New York Public Library.

Present interests: NHS reforms, health and sustainability as proxies for gentrification, planning and institutional memory, how cities reckon with / take responsibility for fraught pasts.

Selected Work

Highlights and media mentions

“Sick City,”
Aeon Magazine

“A beautifully expressed meditation on the relationship between planning and health, and a fine example of using narrative to tell the story of planning. A must read.” - The Planner, Royal Town Planning Institute Member Magazine (2024)

Also selected as a Longreads pick and named under Best History Writing of 2023 by Bunk History

“Home Sick,”
The Planner, Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Magazine

“We love featuring long-from articles by planners in the magazine and we enjoy working with industry professionals to produce high quality material that sits comfortably in our pages. It's rare, however, to come across a planning professional whose work is so good that it could happily grace the pages of the New Yorker or a magazine of similar standing.

As soon as we read a piece by Katie Mulkowsky, we knew we had to have her in The Planner. This, we hope, is the first of many articles that explore her interest in and concern for the intersection of planning, housing and health. It's beautifully written and manages to balance the personal, the public and the professional with a deceptively light touch." - The Planner (2025)