Journalism & essays

57 bylined pieces, newest first. 40 have a PDF of the printed or published page. For press coverage, interviews and broadcasts, see Media and the Full CV. Member, National Union of Journalists (UK); registered with the United States Press Agency.

Journalism & essays 57

• 2026‘Trash Mastering: James Bowthorpe’s Lost Hudson River Expedition’. Work in progress.
• 2026‘Surviving Nuclear War’, RECOIL OFFGRID Magazine, 75th Anniversary edition. PDF
• 2024‘Pools and Parks, But No Sunlight: My Strange Journey into the Fallout Bunkers of the Super-Rich’, The Telegraph, 12 April. PDF
• 2022‘Generation Prep and the Rise of the Private Bunker Industry’, Red Pepper. PDF
• 2022‘”Our Top Search Term Is Nuclear”: US Bunker Sales Soar as Anxiety Over Russia Rises’, The Guardian, 29 March. PDF
• 2022‘Notes On… Bunkers’, The Spectator, 19 March, p. 52. PDF
• 2022with Jenny Perlin, ‘Life Underground’, Sloan Science and Film, Museum of the Moving Image, New York, 8 March. PDF
• 2022‘Pioneers on the Steep Slope’, Herrenknecht Magazine, pp. 64–71. PDF
• 2021‘2021 State of the Industry Report’, BackdoorPrepper.com, 30 September. PDF
• 2020‘Apocalypse Now? I Went Inside the World’s Most Extreme Apocalypse Bunkers’, The Sun, 20 November.
• 2020‘Enter the Killdozer: How a 2004 Rampage Inspired Today’s Right-Wing Preppers’, GQ Magazine, 20 August. PDF
• 2020‘The Ultimate Destination for Doomsday Preppers’, Daily Beast, 13 August. PDF
• 2020‘Welcome to the Pleasure Dome’, Guardian Weekend Magazine, August. PDF
• 2020‘Take Back Our Bunkers’, The Big Issue, August. PDF
• 2020‘The Bunker Builders Preparing for Doomsday’, BBC Future, 14 May. PDF
• 2020‘Living with Bunker Builders: Doomsday Prepping in the Age of Coronavirus’, The Conversation, 14 May. PDF
• 2020‘We Should All Be Preppers’, The Atlantic, 3 May. One of the five most-read articles that May. PDF
• 2019‘A Cinema, a Pool, a Bar Inside the Post-Apocalyptic Underground Future’, Guardian Cities, 16 December. PDF
• 2019‘Free Speech or Sky Vandalism? Here’s What the Law Says About Skywriting in Australia’, The Conversation, 20 August. PDF
• 2018‘Environmental Drone Methodologies’, Sydney Environment Institute, 18 August. PDF
• 2018‘Who Owns the Space Under Cities?’, Guardian Cities, 10 July. PDF
• 2018‘Demanding Public Rights in Private Spaces: Lessons of the Starbucks Controversy’, The Big Idea, Vox Media, 29 May. PDF
• 2018‘Redevelopment Makes New Waves on the LA River’, Resurgence and Ecologist No. 308, March/April, pp. 18–19. PDF
• 2018‘L’espace public privatisé’, L’Écologiste 19(51), Janvier–Mars, pp. 13–14. PDF
• 2018‘Space Invaders’, Resurgence and Ecologist, November/December, pp. 14–15. PDF
• 2018‘London’s Future… Public Space’, Museum of London City Now City Future Series, 28 September.
• 2017‘These Squares Are Our Squares’, Guardian Cities, 25 July. PDF
• 2017‘Malta’s Secret Tunnels: Inside the Newly Discovered Underworld of Valletta’, Guardian Cities, 20 February. PDF
• 2016with Adam Fish, ‘Reframing Drone Methodologies’, Centre for Mobilities Research blog, 18 December.
• 2016with Adam Fish, ‘Attack on the Drones’, Guardian Cities, 12 December. PDF
• 2016‘Listening to the City at Rest’, Guerilla Science blog, 18 August.
• 2016‘Hands Off #OurLand’, Guardian Cities, 13 June. PDF
• 2016‘Space Probe Alpha Launches into Space’, Resurgence and Ecologist, February/March. PDF
• 2016‘London Rising: Illicit Photographs from the City’s Heights — In Pictures’, Guardian Cities, 11 February.
• 2016‘What the Battle for Freeman’s Wood Says About the Future of Our Common Land’, Guardian Cities, 10 February. PDF
• 2016‘Reopening London’s Mail Rail’, The Conversation, 9 February.
• 2015‘Cities at Night’, Guardian Cities, 19 November. PDF
• 2015Last Word: ‘Adventure Is Right on Your Doorstep’, RSA Journal, Issue 3 (October), p. 50. PDF
• 2015‘PSPOs: The New Control Orders Threatening Our Public Spaces’, Guardian Cities, 8 September. PDF
• 2015‘The Privatisation of Cities’ Public Spaces Is Escalating’, Guardian Cities, 4 August.
• 2015‘Why Gonzo Journalism Is Crucial to Our Understanding of Cities and Their Tribes’, Guardian Cities, 20 May. PDF
• 2015‘Why I’m Resisting the Conservatives’ War on Foreign Intellectuals in Britain’, The Conversation, 5 May.
• 2015‘Meet the Rooftoppers’, Guardian Cities, 17 February. PDF
• 2014‘Underground London: Abandoned Tube Stations and Tunnels — In Pictures’, Guardian Cities, 25 September. PDF
• 2014‘Night Walkers: Place-Hacking Nocturnal London’, Uncube Magazine Vol. 29 (After Dark), BauNetz Media, Berlin, pp. 21–29.
• 2014‘Underground London: Adventures in the Secret City Beneath Our Feet’, Guardian Cities, 11 November.
• 2014‘Access Denied’, Times Higher Education, 5–11 June, No. 2,155, pp. 34–39. Cover story; cover photograph by Garrett. PDF
• 2013‘For Urban Explorers, the Underground Revolution Is a Bitter Blow’, Financial Times, November. PDF
• 2013‘Explore Everything: Place-Hacking’, Dazed, November.
• 2012‘Capital Striation’, Photoworks Magazine, Issue 19, pp. 80–83.
• 2012‘The Value of Archiving Informal Social Histories’, British Library / ESRC Politics and Government page.
• 2012‘The Tribe’, UE Magazine, Magcloud, October (Vol. 3), pp. 17–20. PDF
• 2012‘Scaling the Shard’, Domus Magazine, July, pp. 59–63. PDF
• 2012‘Strange Man in a Strange Land’, The Wanderer Magazine, University of Oxford, 7 January.
• 2011‘The Fragmentation of Urban Exploration’, Domus Magazine, June. PDF
• 2011with Erika Sigvadsdotter, ‘The Tree’ by Torgny Lindgren, translated from the Swedish, Asymptote Journal, April.
• 2010with Michael Anton, Terri Moreau, Amy Cutler, Ellie Miles and Alison Hess, ‘London’s Olympic Waterscape’, British Library Sport and Society section.