Platform Urbanism and Its Discontents

By reorganizing access to a wide spectrum of fundamental domains, such as education, housing, health care, or even political information, platforms are destined to become the most powerful players regulating the way we live in cities. Digital platforms such as Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, and Amazon are not only new types of enterprises but also a completely new culture of life – from the products we handle and the services we use every day to entire urban neighbourhoods that will be built by major platform enterprises in the next few years. These multi-scalar changes raise significant questions about the social potentials and risks of the architecture of these all-encompassing ecosystems.