From platform capitalism to strategic place-based platformisation?

Digital platforms have pervaded a broad sweep of urban life over the last decade and more. Urban mobility platforms have been particularly prevalent, often seeking to disrupt and provide alternatives to the existing organisation of provision. In this paper we argue that there is a need to strengthen understanding of the role of urban (governing and infrastructural) context in platform urbanism. Moving from debates around platform capitalism, where understanding of the role of the urban is relatively ignored, to platform urbanism, where the mutual shaping of platform and urban has been recognised, we argue that the urban can and should be conceived of more strongly as a site of possibility, where platformisation can be strategically shaped in pursuit of public priorities. The implications of this are potentially profound but poorly understood. We respond to this by developing a framework that extends existing thinking in this area via a critical synthesis of platform capitalism and platform urbanism literatures, illustrated by empirical research in two English metropolitan public transport contexts. There are signs of place-based interests seeking to corral platform technologies and existing systems of provision into new configurations that support public control of platformised systems for the pursuit of public priorities and values. We set out the relevance of the framework for contexts beyond those in which we have conducted research.