This introductory chapter situates platform urbanism within a long history of cities as sites of technological innovation, economic transformation, and socio-political struggle. It examines the economic and governance models underpinning platformisation, exploring how digital platforms leverage modularity, network effects, and corporate strategies to reorganise urban services and consolidate control over key infrastructures. The chapter argues that rather than as a static or inherently positive or negative condition, platform urbanism should be studied as an evolving phase in the co-development of digital infrastructures and urban life. Finally, it introduces key themes of the Handbook and outlines its structure, highlighting the different perspectives and debates addressed in subsequent chapters. 

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This chapter presents and excavates the evolution of platform urbanism, exploring it as both a concept rooted in rich genealogical and idealistic traditions, and a collection of practices related to urban consumption, performance, and daily experiences in the city. Platforms are discussed as enablers of data intermediation across space, time, and jurisdictional boundaries. The chapter raises key questions around current understandings of platform urbanism. First, it critically reflects on the link between capitalism and platform urbanism, asking whether that link holds when considering perspectives beyond the Global North, including governance-focused platforms such as those during the Covid pandemic or China’s social credit system. Second, it examines the link between platform intermediation and the production of new forms of inequality (around the gig economy, precarity, etc.), critically interrogating the assumption that digital platforms must represent an improvement in urban life. 

This chapter examines the art of the ‘platform play’ as a set of engagement principles driving the extension of successful digital products and services. Reflecting on how strategies to build and nurture platform ecosystems are proliferating across the fields of strategic design and digital entrepreneurship, the chapter considers platform strategy as increasingly fundamental to organisational strategy in a digitally-intensive global society.  As a core strategy for organisational design and engagement, platform methods of engagement deserve consideration for their ability to promote improved design and collaboration outcomes for citizen-centric services.  A ‘platform civics’ approach, it is argued, can adapt platform strategy away from the damaging impacts of surveillance capitalism, towards improved outcomes for citizens and future cities, and is therefore important to the evolution of a more citizen-centric platform urbanism.  

Why are unprofitable gig work platforms so highly valued? Recent scholarship argues that gig platforms configure their data and computational infrastructure as financial assets, and that this speculative valuation offsets monetary losses on ride-hailing and food-delivery services. At the root of this valuation, however, is a narrative of efficiency and optimization that has little bearing on platforms’ on-the-ground operations. In practice, gig work platforms are remarkably inefficient. I build on Veblen's work on the business enterprise to argue that platforms’ financial exceptionalism owes to their unique capacity to strategically insert inefficiencies within and beyond the market encounters they broker, a pattern that I call ‘platform sabotage.’ The paper offers five vignettes of platform sabotage at work, illustrating how platforms target their strategic inefficiencies across various constituencies of market actors. The paper concludes with discussion of sabotage as a modality of platformisation. 

Media has long interested urban scholars, but the pervasiveness of digital mediatization has revealed limitations in how media is conceptualized within the field. This chapter takes a digital ethnographic approach, focusing on the case of São Paulo’s gentrifying Centro neighbourhood, to explore how cities adapt to social media - developing an understanding of urban mediatization focused on attention as a new form of capital in the contemporary urban economy. Interviews with investors reveal that restaurants and bars increasingly view themselves as hubs for the exchange of attention capital, adapting their business practices to align with social media logic and become more ‘viral.’ Attention flows through the urban economy: purchased from influencers, offered to customers, and traded with suppliers. As it integrates into the city’s political economy, attention re-shapes urban aesthetics and transforms the built environment – with profound implications for urban life. 

This chapter examines Platform-based Urban Entrepreneurialism in Chinese cities, using Zibo City's barbecue-themed transformation as a case study. It explores the shift from managerialism to entrepreneurial competitive models in urban governance, with a focus on the role of digital platforms. Zibo City's success in leveraging social media platforms for urban entrepreneurialism is detailed, showcasing its short-term transformation into a vibrant tourist destination. Government intervention played a pivotal role in fostering barbecue brand development, which further impacts cultural tourism, finance, retail, and services. The chapter concludes by summarizing insights for both academic research and practical applications, encouraging the exploration of digital platforms in urban economic transformation, urban branding, consumer behaviour, and government. Although the long-term outlook remains uncertain, the Zibo barbecue phenomenon serves as a valuable reference for cities and regions aiming for short-term transformations in urban brand building, services industry, social media engagement, and government-enhanced internet services. 

This case study aims to illustrate how crowdfunding platforms can encourage value-sharing by acting as a central hub for platform-based interactions that enable the creation and transfer of value, as well as the use of a market instrument for non-market exchanges. We examine how an urban project achieves its objectives by utilising crowdfunding as a hub for reaching and interacting with audiences. This case study research aims to enhance the understanding of the dynamics between online and offline communities in developing diverse and inclusive urban infrastructures using digital platforms. We contend that the connection between urbanism and online platforms is reciprocal: platforms can contribute to enhancing urbanism and localised initiatives, if individuals mobilise local networks and utilise platforms as digital intermediaries - as a virtual centre for both financial and non-financial transactions. 

This article describes the growth of carpooling platforms in urban areas following the introduction of subsidy schemes by local authorities. This setup represents a case of platform urbanism in three aspects: public support, data sharing and territorial configuration. Although public support increases activity in many areas, it is too early to say whether it has efficiently created sustainable marketplaces. Moreover, as the platforms retain a technical expertise in the data processes that validate the subsidies, the leadership of the public authorities remains limited. Finally, the subsidy system increases the dependency between platforms and territories, in particular through the parameters of the campaigns. More research is needed to understand the optimal level of subsidy, the right type of governance of subsidy campaigns and how they can best meet the needs of a territory.  

Local governments are increasingly facing the demands of population growth and societal pressures, leading them to adopt cross-sectoral technologies, and join the "smart city" trend. Often, this trend aligns with a market mindset, which emphasises profit objectives and forges public-private partnerships with multinational corporations. The symbiotic relationship between the public and private sectors transforms citizens into consumers of services, privatising citizenship and ceding local government control to private entities. This movement creates a legal vacuum, allowing the private sector to shape the public sector according to its principles. Thus, this chapter addresses critical questions about the role of public-private partnerships in citizenship, their impact on power relations in local governance, and the protective role of data regulations in smart cities.   

This chapter explores the role of law, particularly local government and internet law, in shaping platform urbanism and influencing local governments' responses to its effects on cities. Using case studies such from Los Angeles, Barcelona and New York City, the chapter delves into how legal frameworks impact the regulation of platforms like Uber and Airbnb. The analysis highlights the tension between the powers of municipal governments and the influence of platforms governed by permissive corporate and internet laws.  By doing so, it underscores how cities' limited powers, shaped by legal structures, create challenges in regulating platform urbanism, and argues for a broader understanding of municipal power and advocates for reforms in horizontal data governance to address the challenges posed by platform urbanism.  

This chapter examines institutional strategies employed by Uber, Airbnb, and incumbent competitors. Entrepreneurs use institutional strategies to seek or preserve legitimacy by either changing or maintaining the institutional and regulatory setting. Using a two-fold case study design, based on data from content analysis and interviews, we compare institutional strategies across sharing economy ecosystems of ride-hailing and hospitality lodging. We also analyse how those strategies have shaped governance since sharing platforms’ entry in Brussels over a decade ago. The findings show that each ecosystem has its specific dynamics in terms of institutional strategies and governance. 

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This chapter delves into the concept of AI Localism within the context of platform urbanism. AI Localism points to the emergent efforts at the local level to govern artificial intelligence, where cities have become policy innovators and first-mover regulators of AI technologies. As a descriptive framework, AI Localism illustrates the main pillars used to govern the deployment of AI technologies within urban and local environments. These include the establishment of principles, formulation of specific regulations, procurement processes, public engagement strategies, accountability and oversight mechanisms, transparency of AI systems, and the enhancement of literacy and education around AI. In the final section, the chapter considers whether AI Localism can also provide a prescriptive framework to inform cities on how to govern AI within their context. 

Digital platforms are becoming increasingly involved in creating digital representations of places. They aspire to facilitate users' experience, while simultaneously affecting the creation of narratives and identities of place. In consequence, they act as gatekeepers for digital content, reinforcing digital inequalities and seeking to expose or marginalise selected parts of cities. This chapter aims to explore how the increasing platformisation of the city affects the place experience through manipulating digital content. The aim will be achieved by analysing spatial distribution of place search results through Google Maps at two spatial scales in Poznan, Poland, and in different language iterations: Polish, English, Ukrainian and German. Results highlight the digital divides created by Google Maps in Poznań, where non-Polish and non-English speakers might face a relatively poorer digital representation. It may lead to the question of whether Ukrainian and German speakers or other minorities might not fully participate in urban life. 

Urban assemblage is a term that denotes the emergence of novel socio-spatial relationships arising from the temporary convergence of various elements within a city. This concept offers an alternative and practical framework for examining the spatial interactions between digital platforms and urban environments. The chapter aims to explore and illustrate how the three leading digital platforms within the e-commerce sector in Türkiye perceive the spatial dimensions of Istanbul by the year 2024. Initially, the chapter assesses the alignment between Istanbul's administrative geography and the intermediation geography employed by these digital platforms. Subsequently, it examines the implications of this alignment within the framework of shifting centre-edge relationships, as well as the evolution of borders and territories within the city. The research reveals that digital platforms have established temporary spatial ties across much of Istanbul and that a unique urban assemblage has emerged in the city.  

Everyday use of platforms is an unceasing oscillation between platform interfaces and urban space. Given how platforms are used, qualitative approaches addressing platforms and their relationships with urban spaces are needed. Focusing on broader ethnographic concerns, the chapter outlines a qualitative toolbox dealing with the entanglement of digital and physical features of everyday platform use. To do this, the chapter draws on theoretical and methodological considerations regarding digital/physical entanglements, the walkthrough method, and the themes of digital placemaking, locative features and gateways. By this toolbox, the chapter also answers to a call for ethnographic approaches to platform urbanism as platform urbanism scholarship has focused primarily on broader political economy analyses. Examining platforms with ethnographic tools is beneficial as ethnographers begin in people’s everyday life to understand space and place. 

Platform urbanism, driven by data-centred digital systems, has enabled the rise of platform capitalism - a model characterised by data extraction and the conversion of less commercialised activities into market-oriented domains. This has led to issues of commodification, exploitation, and disempowerment, raising questions about the democratic and inclusive nature of platform technologies. While scholars acknowledge the potential for alternative models, there is currently a lack of well-elaborated alternative conceptualisations. The chapter proposes ‘platform commoning’ as an alternative model. By drawing parallels between the commons logic and the social justice theories of the Right to the City of Lefebvre and Parity of Participation of Fraser, the chapter starts to conceptualise how platform commoning can advance social justice within the datafied city. 

This chapter explores the spatial configurations of platform cooperatives as an alternative to the dominant transnational platform corporations (TPCs) in the context of platform capitalism. TPCs, despite their central role in urban life, have been associated with various socio-economic problems. In response, platform cooperatives, grounded in cooperative principles, aim to offer democratic alternatives. However, existing research lacks a comprehensive understanding of to what extent and how platform cooperatives have alternative spatial configurations that can mitigate the aforementioned problems. This study addresses this gap by examining the case of Gebiedonline, a Dutch platform cooperative. The analysis reveals significant differences in how platform cooperatives and TPCs are embedded in different spaces. While TPCs engage in dis-embedded centralised technology dissemination with extensive data extraction, platform cooperatives like Gebiedonline are embedded in collaborative networks where locally-embedded organisations collectively decide on technological developments. This allows platform cooperatives to mitigate risks associated with TPCs’ dis-embeddedness.  

Local matters of concern may push civil society to engage with forms of civic monitoring and other participatory approaches to promote transformations. These efforts are frequently deployed on (digital/physical) platforms as spaces for encounter and coordination which can be framed as ‘platform communities’. Such platforms are spaces where civic actors convene and exchange ideas and data on real-world issues. On these platforms community-bonding and multi-stakeholders’ cooperation take place. The chapter discusses cases of civic environmental monitoring and civic assemblies around Milan, observed in the framework of the research project Sensing for Justice. It focuses on exploring how participatory approaches complement each other and reflects on the impact that civic contributions facilitated by these platforms has and could have for fostering socio-environmental transformations in the city. 

This chapter explores the dynamic interaction between the digital and physical environments in Bogotá, highlighting the role of platform urbanism in merging the lines between intangible and tangible spaces. It showcases the profound impact of digital platforms in transforming aspects of urban life, including transportation, community engagement, and governance structures. The chapter highlights how digital platforms like the 'creole' ride-hailing community of drivers: Drivers Club Bogotá (DCB), become intertwined with the city's tangible space, influencing socio-economic activities and community dynamics. The chapter emphasises the dual spatiality in urban environments, where online interactions guide tangible actions and vice versa. Ultimately, this chapter underscores the transformative power of digital platforms in reshaping urban life, highlighting the importance of ensuring that digital innovations do not replace place-based experiences, but rather, serve to enhance these aspects of a city's identity.  

The chapter critically examines platform urbanism and explores possible democratic interventions aimed at enhancing technical citizenship. The evolving concept of ‘platform urbanism’ highlights market-driven efficiencies within the smart cities discourse and the pervasive influence of corporate-owned infrastructures, applications, and services that datafy, commodify and reshape interactions with urban spaces. Adopting a socio-technical perspective, the chapter interrogates current imaginaries of platform urbanism and proposes a reconceptualization that foregrounds a citizen-informed, rights-based approach rooted in meaningful participation and empowerment. Integrating insights from media and communication studies, platform studies, urban geography, and the critical constructivism of technology, the chapter draws on ongoing research across Europe to reimagine platform urbanism through civic agency and rights assertion. 

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In this chapter, I examine how masculinities—qualities and capacities associated with men—are performed by food delivery platform workers in Helsinki. In doing so, I re-examine the platform work cultures to supplement platform urbanism’s focus on the political-economic problems of work, such as labour, power, and gender inequalities. I argue that platform work is also a cultural issue. The proposed concept of soft masculinities underscores how couriers’ bodies and desires are sites and agents of masculine competitiveness within a gamified food delivery work environment. Certain masculine capacities allow couriers to stay ‘competitive’ in the ‘game’; however, this embodiment simultaneously renders couriers’ bodies soft – seen as being and feeling vulnerable due to their proximity to the ‘game’. Acknowledging couriers’ soft bodies and desires helps (re)construct masculinities within gamified platform work cultures.  

In this chapter, we follow the flows of data (e.g., census data, open data, administrative data, proprietary data) to map out and analyse what visible and less visible relations among space, technological assemblages and city dwellers emerge, with an eye on power struggles. Our analysis is based on both our ongoing and extended collective work in Parc-Extension, Montréal, a racialized neighbourhood facing rapid gentrification, and our individual involvement in data projects across the city. By mapping out different flows of data in this neighbourhood, we aimed to uncover the indirect effects of AI innovation policy within platform urbanism as well as how grassroot groups are pushing back against dispossession, eviction, and gentrification. Our study shows that while in the era of platform urbanism a range of actors capitalise on data and its narratives, these intersecting dataflows favour widely unequal access that cannot be equalised in the realm of dataflows alone. 

This chapter explores the integration of participatory approaches with platform urbanism, focusing on methods like citizen science and participatory simulations. It examines how data-driven methods and digital platforms enable citizen engagement in addressing complex urban challenges, such as air quality monitoring and noise pollution. Through a detailed review of typologies and levels of participation, the chapter emphasises the importance of inclusivity, trust-building, and long-term citizen involvement in urban governance. Challenges such as data biases, inclusivity, and the socio-economic digital divide are highlighted, with recommendations for mitigating these issues through thoughtful platform design and the combination of digital and on-site participatory methods. Case studies from European cities illustrate the potential of these methods to enhance citizen engagement while addressing urban environmental challenges. 

There is an increasing interest from the business, scientific and policy-making communities in understanding the potential links and relationships between the risks and benefits of Platform Urbanism projects. There is a gap in the literature in understanding how the intersection of Platform Urbanism and Smart Cities can be designed to create greater benefits for local communities and decrease risks. This chapter focuses on the key concept of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) to explore the potentially beneficial or detrimental relationships between Smart City projects and communities impacted by the implementation of platform technologies. By exploring Smart City projects through a Community Benefits Agreements framework, issues of equitable benefit and risk across different communities are identified. The lack of formal accountability to equity seeking communities in Smart City projects is highlighted as a relational dynamic with a direct impact on social and environmental justice issues.