URBAN PLATFORMS AND THE FUTURE CITY This title takes the broadest possible scope to interrogate the emergence of “platform urbanism”, examining how it transforms urban infrastructure, governance, knowledge production, and everyday life, and brings together leading scholars and early-career re- searchers from across five continents and multiple disciplines. The volume advances theoretical debates at the leading edge of the intersection between urbanism, governance, and the digital economy, by drawing on a range of empirically de- tailed cases from which to theorize the multiplicity of forms that platform urbanism takes. It draws international comparisons between urban platforms across sites, with attention to the leading edges of theory and practice and explores the potential for a renewal of civic life, engagement, and participatory governance through “platform cooperativism” and related movements. A breadth of tangible and diverse examples of platform urbanism pro- vides critical insights to scholars examining the interface of digital technologies and urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban knowledge production, and everyday urban life. The book will be invaluable on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as for academics and researchers in these fields, including anthropology, geogra- phy, innovation studies, politics, public policy, science and technology studies, sociology, sustainable development, urban planning, and urban studies. It will also appeal to an engaged, academia-adjacent readership, including city and regional planners, policymak- ers, and third-sector researchers in the realms of citizen engagement, industrial strategy, regeneration, sustainable development, and transport. Mike Hodson is senior research fellow in the Sustainable Consumption Institute, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester and a member of the Manchester Urban Institute, UK. Julia Kasmire researches and teaches on how to use new forms of data for social scientists with the UK Data Service and the Cathie Marsh Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. Andrew McMeekin is Professor of Innovation at the Alliance Manchester Business School and the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), UK. John G. Stehlin is Assistant Professor in the department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. Kevin Ward is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Director of the Manchester Urban Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. URBAN PLATFORMS AND THE FUTURE CITY Transformations in Infrastructure, Governance, Knowledge and Everyday Life Edited by Mike Hodson, Julia Kasmire, Andrew McMeekin, John G. Stehlin and Kevin Ward First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Mike Hodson, Julia Kasmire, Andrew McMeekin, John G. Stehlin and Kevin Ward; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Mike Hodson, Julia Kasmire, Andrew McMeekin, John G. Stehlin and Kevin Ward to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hodson, Mike, editor. | Routledge (Firm) Title: Urban platforms and the future city: transformations in infrastructure, governance, knowledge production and everyday life / edited by Mike Hodson, Julia Kasmire, Andrew McMeekin, John G. Stehlin and Kevin Ward. Description: First Edition. | New York: Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020024810 (print) | LCCN 2020024811 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: City planning—Environmental aspects. | Sustainable urban development. | Urban policy. Classification: LCC HT241 .U7266 2020 (print) | LCC HT241 (ebook) | DDC 307.1/216—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024810 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024811 ISBN: 978-0-367-33418-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-33419-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-31975-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra CONTENTS List of figures viii List of tables x List of contributors xi Acknowledgements xviii 1 Introduction 1 Mike Hodson, Julia Kasmire, Andrew McMeekin, John G. Stehlin and Kevin Ward SECTION 1 What kind of urban infrastructure are platforms? 23 2 The urban stack: a topology for urban data infrastructures 25 Aaron Shapiro 3 Political ecologies of platform urbanism: digital labor and data infrastructures 40 Dillon Mahmoudi, Anthony M. Levenda and John G. Stehlin 4 Unicorns, platforms, and global cities: the economic geography of ride-hailing 53 Shauna Brail vi Contents 5 Digital infrastructures, services, and spaces: the geography of platform urbanism 70 Alan Wiig and Michele Masucci SECTION 2 Do platforms represent a new model of urban governance? 85 6 Joining the dots: platform intermediation and the recombinatory governance of Uber’s ecosystem 87 Sarah Barns 7 A new institution on the block: on platform urbanism and Airbnb citizenship 105 Niels van Doorn 8 Political struggles in the platform economy: understanding platform legitimation tactics 120 Luke Yates 9 Analysing urban platforms and inequality through a “Platform Justice” lens 134 Richard Heeks and Satyarupa Shekhar SECTION 3 What kinds of urban knowledge are generated, legitimised, and valued through platforms? 149 10 When data is capital: datafication, accumulation, extraction 151 Jathan Sadowski 11 Platform urbanism and knowledge-power 164 Maroš Krivý 12 Wiki-urbanism: curating a slum resettlement colony with open knowledge platforms 177 Padmini Ray Murray and Ayona Datta 13 From panopticons to the partial: digital and blockchain mapping in platform urbanism 191 Clancy Wilmott Contents vii SECTION 4 How are platforms re-shaping everyday urban experiences? 207 14 Platform phenomenologies: social media as experiential infrastructures of urban public life 209 Scott Rodgers and Susan Moore 15 Urban consumption, markets and platforms as flexible spatial arrangements 223 Lizzie Richardson 16 Between algorithms and the streets: the everyday politics of ride-hailing taxis in India 235 Anurag Mazumdar 17 Platforms in the making: hacking the urban environment in Brazilian cities 248 Andrés Luque-Ayala, Rodrigo José Firmino, Tharsila Maynardes Dallabona Fariniuk, Gilberto Vieira and Juliana Marques Index 263 FIGURES 2.1 The urban stack 28 4.1 Ride-hailing’s global reach 60 4.2 World cities of ride-hailing 61 5.1 The intersection of Germantown Ave. and Cecil B. Moore Ave. in Lower North Philadelphia. On the right, the site of the Stetson Hat Factory, which employed 5,000 people in the 1920s before closing in 1971 (h ttp://w ww. philaplace. o rg/ s tory/ 326/ ). The location is now Honor Foods’ refrigerated food logistics and distribution center (h ttps://w ww. h onorfoods . com). Note in the left background the cellular antenna sticking above the roof of the Factory Lofts apartment building, providing platform connectivity to the neighborhood 73 9.1a Platform representation of low-income area. Kibera on Google Maps 136 9.1b Platform representation of high-income area. Nairobi Central District on Google Maps 137 9.2 Platform justice model 139 9.3 Example paper-based “Mini-Atlas” from Solo Kota Kita (2010) 141 9.4 OpenStreetMap view of Kibera 143 12.1 Post-it notes for an analogue editathon 178 12.2 Screenshot of older version of the Wikipedia page 179 12.3 Entry to Madanpur Khadar JJ Colony 180 13.1 Chain. List of contract events from FOAM (2019) 197 13.2 Traditional top-down digital mapping using satellites (left) and peer-to-peer blockchain mapping (right) 198 13.3 Staked. Screenshot of FOAM point of interest (POI) dashboard for UCL Main Building. The map layer for the POIs is overlaid onto Open Street Map 203 Figures ix 17.1 Combined results for all 57 cases in all 4 cities 254 17.2 CocôZap Hackathon at data_labe’s workshop (December 2019), aimed at imagining ways of using data as a form of infrastructural activism around sanitation 256 17.3 Poor sanitation conditions in Maré, under a graffiti forbidding littering 257