Barcelona’s Grassroots-led Urban Experimentation: Deciphering the ‘Data Commons’ Policy Scheme

Abstract

Smart city policy approaches have been gradually transitioning in parallel with data policy regulations. This is the case for Barcelona, which has been executing its policy framework called 'data commons' with the goal of further grassroots-led urban experimentations. This paper examines to what extent the new paradigm of 'data commons' will remain and even be reinforced, given the ongoing local elections and the volatile political and regional context of the upcoming May 2019 elections. In doing so, this paper elaborates on the steps Barcelona has been taking, given the new 'Declaration of Cities Coalition for Digital Rights' signed by Barcelona, Amsterdam, and New York. Nonetheless, as a result and continuation of previous published fieldwork research, by applying the Penta Helix framework from a social innovation perspective, this paper questions why several implementations are being consolidated while others actually show a tension between two different models: 'platform capitalism' vs 'platform co-operativism'. In regard to the former model, permanent strikes provoked by the Elite Taxi BCN association in August 2018 in response to the aftermath of big tech companies Cabify and Uber initially cleared to operate in Barcelona by the regional government, have demonstrated the negative side-effects of 'platform capitalism'. By contrast, Som Energia is a successful case study based on the latter innovative business model, 'platform co-operativism', stemming from grassroots-led urban experimentation. This paper concludes by suggesting a synthesis regarding the ongoing platform revolution at stake, in light of the need for democratic accountability.

Democratising Smart Cities? Penta-Helix Multistakeholder Social Innovation Framework

“…Thus, to methodologically operationalise stakeholders among helix frameworks and the related interactions among them that result in a diverse set of business/social models-albeit avoiding normative determinism on further assumptions-this section presents two intertwined literature reviews stemming from SI by focusing on the intermediation that enables the penta-helix framework conditions. The first subsection revolves around the literature on rethinking multistakeholder helix frameworks by exploring the potential features of triple-, quadruple-, and penta-helix frameworks based on the notion of the urban commons, particularly through data commons as an updated timely trend in several smart cities [83,84]. The second subsection examines the literature on the resulting five business/social models that stem from the multistakeholder helix frameworks.…”

“…This fact could be seen as a systemic innovative spark towards tackling the lack of political engagement and democratic representation. The penta-helix framework, thus, suggests the fifth helix, an assemblage, being diluted in the other four helixes while claiming the need to expand the understanding of the data-driven smart city and focusing on the identification of the urban assets as data with full consideration now as a public good or as data commons [84].…”

“…Inevitably, the penta-helix framework resonates with the narratives of the urban commons [104], which has recently been reinterpreted, most importantly, in the aftermath of the algorithmic disruptive tsunami, as data commons [83,84], in which data is seen as a common infrastructure beyond the PPP hegemony. Regarding data commons, Bollier [105] suggests that citizens could retain control of data related to the smart services that matter to them, instead of data related to businesses or bureaucracy.…”

Between governance‐driven democratisation and democracy‐driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona

“…The new administration embarked on an ambitious reform programme that ranged from public service re-municipalisation to the promotion of co-operative enterprise and the solidarity economy (Martinez 2019;Roth et al 2019;Blanco et al 2020). Inspired by the radical 'techno-politics' and 'hacker ethics' of many anti-austerity activists (Barandiaran 2019;Calzada & Almirall 2019), BeC is also challenging the dominance of large tech companies and reclaiming technological infrastructures and services for socio-communitarian purposes (Barandiaran 2019: 203;Calleja & Toret 2019). This is what hacker activists call 'technological sovereignty' (Hache 2014, cited in Barandiaran 2019) against neoliberal 'smart-city' models (Calzada 2018).…”

Technological Sovereignty: Protecting Citizens’ Digital Rights in the AI-driven and post-GDPR Algorithmic and City-Regional European Realm

“…Hence, reverting this disruptive and extractivist logic, GDPR may have already shifted the conversations that city authorities like Barcelona have with smart-city solution providers (such as Uber, Cabify, Lift, and even AirBnB), particularly in relation to their business models, monetization strategies, and data-processing procedures (Calzada and Almirall 2019a;2019b). The case of Barcelona contrasts with the case study of Sidewalk Labs in Quayside, Toronto (Goodman and Powles 2019), an operation led by Alphabet Inc. where the tech giants' ambition seems to bypass citizens' consent, instead investing in broadening and deepening their surveillance techniques and becoming exploration machines that compete in innovation with a new set of economics endowed with both human and non-human logics.…”