There is a subtle difference when you walk through any major city these days. It’s not the noise or the architecture, but rather the way the city seems to be waiting for you. Before you even realize you’re hungry, your phone buzzes with a restaurant recommendation. Before you even notice the traffic, your commute route changes. In a subtle and somewhat unsettling way, the city is listening.
This is no longer science fiction. For more than ten years, platform urbanism has been subtly coming together, block by block, app by app, and data point by data point. What started out as “smart city” promises in the 2010s—responsive infrastructure, improved transit, and cleaner waste management—has evolved into something much more ambitious and much less transparent. Cities are no longer merely governed. They are actually operated.
Examining what platforms actually do to a neighborhood is the most straightforward way to comprehend this change. In addition to allowing users to rent extra rooms, Airbnb uses algorithms to determine which streets are profitable, which aesthetic cues encourage reservations, and which visitor demographics are most appealing. Instagram actively changes which streets receive foot traffic, which cafes endure, and which murals are painted especially to be photographed. It does more than simply capture urban life. This is exactly what Jorge Sequera’s recent research on “platform gentrification” captures: the city ceases to be a site where economic forces operate and instead turns into an interface where algorithmic mediation creates winners and losers before anyone moves a single box.
Because the architecture hasn’t changed, it seems like most city dwellers haven’t noticed this shift. The structures appear to be familiar. The directions of the streets remain unchanged. However, there has been a significant change in the underlying logic of who belongs where and who is priced, rated, or routed out. Sequera contends that displacement is becoming more anticipatory. Platforms don’t wait for neighborhoods to gentrify; instead, they indicate which neighborhoods are on the verge of becoming desirable, attracting investment before locals even become aware of it.
This is especially difficult to oppose because so much of it seems convenient. In four minutes, the Uber will arrive. The bag from Deliveroo that beats you home. The Digital Twin being tested in Helsinki or the city brain in Hangzhou are not described as surveillance systems. They are marketed as services. Additionally, they are services that are actually helpful. That’s why it’s so hard to identify the underlying extractivism.
Paolo Cardullo’s interpretation of all this is straightforward and most likely accurate: what we’re referring to as AI urbanism is an intensification of the smart city model rather than a departure from it. The neoliberal reasoning that allowed private tech companies to oversee public city life did not alter; rather, it simply grew larger and became more adept at concealing its flaws. Robotics, autonomous cars, and city brains are not so much post-smart city innovations as they are the same project dressed up.
Whether city governments truly comprehend what they’ve signed up for is still up for debate. Many municipalities thought of themselves as clients when they joined platform partnerships. They might be nearer to the products. Millions of urban dwellers’ movements, purchases, and social patterns generate data that enters private infrastructure, which cities frequently are unable to access, audit, or reroute. IHS researchers have carefully described managing this as a tightrope walk. Insufficient regulation leads to exploitation and concentration. If there is too much, innovation will move elsewhere. Sitting at a city council meeting doesn’t feel very comfortable for either choice.
The data-driven city is undoubtedly no longer a projection of an architect’s design. It’s the city that currently exists, operating covertly beneath the one that the majority of people believe they call home. Whether or not to interact with it is not the question. Who exactly is in charge and whether or not they were elected are the questions.
