Mapping Platform Urbanism: Charting the Nuance of the Platform Pivot

Abstract

Urban planners are increasingly working with ideas around datafied cities, such as platform urbanism, to understand urban life and changes with technology. This article seeks to assist urban planners in these efforts by analysing and mapping the qualities of platform urbanism. Drawing on a dataset of approximately 100 examples that detail urban data practices, we trace some of the current tendencies that are shaping the nature and dynamics of platform urbanism. While we identify no unifying narrative or overarching pattern to our data, we interpret this as supporting Barns’ (2019) notion of a pivot towards platforms. We argue this through exploring the interoperability between data sources and domains (vertical and horizontal integration), identifying elements of how platforms intermediate urban life through their growth in different sectors and the use of geolocation, and note the different artefacts that contribute to platform urbanism. We also note a concerning dynamic where city administration becomes ‘locked in’ to specific corporate products and interests, and thereby ‘locked out’ from alternatives. We discuss this in the context of social inclusion and what this means for urban planners, including the fragility of corporate platforms and what platforms urbanism means for social relationships in the city.

Platform urbanism, smartphone applications and valuing data in a smart city

“…This is an important analysis. However, “engaging with platform services today is an integral part of being an urban citizen and as such involves many different kinds of value‐sharing” (Barns, 2020, p. 17; see Lee et al., 2020). Drawing on discussions of self‐tracking, this paper has suggested that there are two other forms of value that can emerge when data are produced, encountered, and shared via an app.…”

“…This broader context of the “colonization of the [urban] lifeworld through the commodification and extraction of personal information as data” (Thatcher et al., 2016, p. 992) can be understood as part of what has been called “platform capitalism,” in which financial value is extracted from the collection and analysis of data (Srnicek, 2016). Discussions of big data in smart cities have thus been joined by discussions of “platform urbanism” (see for example Barns, 2020; Fields et al., 2020; Lee et al., 2020; Leszczynski, 2019a; Richardson, 2019; and see the special issues edited by Rodgers & Moore, 2018 and Sadowski, 2020).…”

“…Hence apps are created as part of many smart city projects (Abella et al., 2015; Dutta et al., 2019; Kitchin, 2014; Pereira et al., 2016; Shwayri, 2019). Apps are also integral to platform urbanism because they generate much of the “data exhaust” that is harvested by platforms large and small (Barns, 2020; Lee et al., 2020; Thatcher, 2017). Put crudely, data are both delivered and generated through apps, and this paper approaches apps as nodes in wider circuits of data exchange.…”

The Right to the City in the Platform Age: Child-Friendly City and Smart City Premises in Contention

“…Even when more participatory mechanisms are at work (e.g., Living Labs, citizen science), these are said to merit the 'project', and not the 'labour', of smart city ideals advancing mostly economic objectives [76]. Critical attention in media and urban studies is therefore increasingly directed towards the examination of the role of, particularly, platforms as these are indicative of an advancement of the socio-technical relationship between citizens and cities [5,15,77], and for which a public oversight over these developments and their implications-such as increased choice yet with less meaningful participation-are lacking. In these studies, the citizen as 'object' seems to be downplayed in favor of investigating the process of 'usership' (see 'citizenship' in [73,78]).…”

“…Embedded into the systems and infrastructures that foster the built environment and governance dynamics, various manifestations can be detected-e.g., in patterns of consumption, socializing and service provision-that are said to, among others, reduce costs, improve insights in urban flows, spur innovation, enter new markets, and support sustainability goals [2][3][4]. The 'smart city' concept has generally been associated with "the intersection of data technologies and urban environments", while "the unique affordances of platforms are said to signal an evolution of the socio-technical relationship between citizens and cities" [5] (p. 116), what has been termed 'platform urbanism' [6,7]. Public and private entities (separately, and jointly) are incrementally tapping value from this composite of growing assets, such as via new service models, by addressing and reconsidering action modalities, interventions, and the policies impacting the everyday life of many.…”