Cities between digital Innovation and Platform Labour

Abstract

In this final section we will consider the impact of digital technologies on urban spaces. On one side, this means how high tech giants and platform firms are establishing in urban spaces as infrastructures for data accumulation and services’ development, influencing not only urban planning but also economic and social fabric. On the other side, several urban actors —from municipalities to dwellers— move towards entrepreneurialism often using platforms and data. These processes pose new challenges to local governance in terms of regulation and participation that we are going to explore in this paper. In the first paragraph, we will frame the relationship between urban spaces and digital technologies referring to the concept of smart city. In the second, we will focus on a specific subjectivity emerging in such background, the so-called urban entrepreneur. In the third, we will sketch challenges and potentialities for local governance in regulating such phenomena.

Download the article in PDF Visit Volume’s Index