The Urban Digital Platform Unravelling Alternative Spatial Patterns

My contribution is on a potential theory of urban platforms, supported by empirical work that I have collected in Milan and Amsterdam. The aim is to go beyond the notion of platforms as mere infrastructure (such as code and datacentres) and see them in their new role as producers of new social structures on the urban level. Starting from Gillepsie, Bratton, Srnicek, Langley and Leyshon, my focus is on the urban character of platforms in terms of their (uneven) spatial distribution. I propose to define urban platforms through three qualities: 1. As facilitator for the intermediation of digital economic circulation. 2. Bottom-up flows, orchestrated by central command-and-control systems. 3. Uneven geographies, insofar they tend to represent social groups and urban spaces over others. Hence, the thesis deals with the openings and enclosures in the digital urban arena, in which platforms entail a synthesis of social flow with a socioeconomic intention in the production of urban space.