Digital platforms reshape city life
VUB researchers compile international insights on power, inequality and algorithms in the city
From how we get around and shop to which places and people we meet: digital platforms are increasingly explicitly directing daily life in cities. That evolution is at the centre of recent international research around 'platform urbanism', a field of research that critically examines the impact of digital platforms on urban dynamics.
These insights have now been brought together in a new academic handbook, edited by Prof Annelien Smets (imec-SMIT, VUB) and Prof Pieter Ballon, Vice Rector of Research at VUB and international expert on smart cities and platformisation. The book brings together 24 chapters by academics from around the world, each with in-depth empirical cases showing how platforms impact on urban space, policy and social relations.
Central to the research is the question of who gains control over urban life when digital platforms increasingly act as invisible mediators. Apps for mobility, delivery services, navigation or housing determine not only how efficiently a city functions, but also who gets visibility, who has access and who risks being excluded.
"Many of these decisions are made by large technology companies that operate far from the city itself," says Annelien Smets. "That raises fundamental questions about democratic control, urban policy and social justice."
The book also includes chapters by VUB researchers, underlining the university's strong expertise around urban digitisation. For instance, research by Michaël Distelmans and Ilse Scheerlinck (Solvay Business School), among others, analyses the impact of platforms such as Airbnb and taxi apps on the Brussels context, with a particular focus on regulations, strategies and urban consequences. Other contributions focus, among other things, on public-private partnerships, data governance and new forms of inequality that can arise from algorithmic systems.
The Brussels case make the research particularly relevant to Belgian and urban media, showing how global platform logics translate concretely at the local level.
The research also ties in with Smets' previous work on the 'urban filter bubble': the idea that algorithms can steer us not only online, but also physically in the city towards the same places, routes and activities over and over again. This can unintentionally lead to less diversity in experiences and encounters.
"The challenge is to design digital systems in such a way that they just take us out of that bubble," Smets said. "So that technology enhances rather than narrows the richness and diversity of the city."
Although this is an academic textbook, it explicitly targets a wider audience of policymakers, urban planners, researchers and civil society organisations. It aims to provide tools to better understand and critically examine urban platformisation. The publication is part of the broader VUB focus on urban engagement, digital transformation and social impact.
Reference:
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Annelien Smets: annelien.smets@vub.be
