79. Platform Urbanism

City Road Podcast

Cities and regions across the world have experienced profound disruption from the rise of digital platforms across all areas of urban life. From housing, to transport, shopping, and the way we work, global firms such as ‘Airbnb’ and ‘Uber’ typically evade local (place based) policy and regulatory settings. However, their impacts have large socio-spatial footprints which need to be understood and factored into future urban policy and planning. Understood within the wider prism of technological innovation and emerging forms of digital automation across the urban sector, this session engages critically with notions of the ‘smart city’. Will the future city be dictated by ‘techno-capitalist’ firms or are ‘smart’ and socially accountable forms of urban governance still possible? Panel Dr Niels Van Doorn, Amsterdam University Dr Sarah Barns, Urban Strategist & Researcher Dr Justine Humphry, University of Sydney Rory Brown, Smart Places at Transport for NSW Chaired by Dr Sophia Maalsen, University of Sydney Niels van Doorn is an Assistant Professor of New Media and Digital Culture in the Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, and the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded Platform Labor research project (2018-2023). His research asks how digital platforms are reshaping how people work, earn a living, and care for each other in urban environments. Niels holds PhD in Communication Science (2010) from the University of Amsterdam. Dr. Sarah Barns brings two decades of experience navigating and shaping the impacts of digital transformation for cities and communities. She is author ofPlatform Urbanism: Negotiating Platform Ecosystems in Connected Cities (Palgrave, 2020) and a practitioner, researcher and strategist in place-based media and urban digital governance. Currently a Co-Director of urban media practice Esem Projects, Sarah is also an Industry Fellow at the QUT Design Lab and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Melbourne Centre for Cities. Dr Justine Humphry is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. Justine researches the cultures and politics of digital media and emerging technologies with a focus on the social consequences of mobile, smart and data-driven technologies. Her recent research addresses the materialisation of smart cities and the datafication of urban life with a focus on the mediation of home and urban space through smart street furniture, smart voice assistants and robotics. Rory Brown is the A/Executive Director Smart Places at Transport for NSW. In this role he leads the NSW Government to deliver great places and outcomes for people using connected technologies and data solutions, working collaboratively across all tiers of government, with the research and academia sector and industry. He was also the architect of the flagship Smart Western City Program to co-create the Western Parkland City as a future-focused, digitally enabled city. Sophia Maalsen is a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. Her research is predominantly situated at the intersection of the digital and material across urban spaces and governance, housing, and feminism, with particular interest in the digital mediation and reconfiguration of relationships across these spaces.