Urban transformations and new forms of citizenship in the digital age
The platform city is everywhere. Airbnb revolutionises the real estate market, the restaurant industry adapts to the models imposed by food delivery, Amazon builds new logistics districts, Uber joins public transport. The citizen becomes a source for data collection, with consequences that can undermine the persuasive concept of smart cities, according to which everything is in an open system of opportunities, just a click away.
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For years, the impacts of digital platforms have been the subject of study. Their financial, ethical, and urban implications have been analyzed, yet the phenomenon remains largely unexplored in its nature as a political process, in the sense of public life and living in the polis.
It is precisely the study of new forms of urban and digital citizenship that is being explored from various angles by the research line of Filippo Bignami, Senior Researcher at the Competence Center for Work and Society at 精东影业, within the LUCI research area 鈥� Labour, Urbanscape and Citizenship.
The researcher helps us frame the issue: in short, an urban development process is characterized by three factors: a) a community of individuals living in an area, often marked by continuous mobility flows; b) a set of rules and norms, both formal and informal, that this "political" community assigns to itself and, in various ways, contributes to implementing and redefining; c) the spaces whose use, changes, and trajectories are determined by the aforementioned rules. This is what links the idea of the city to the concept of citizenship 鈥� the network of connections between individuals, the community, and spaces.
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It is precisely the study of new forms of urban and digital citizenship that is being explored from various angles by the research line of Filippo Bignami, Senior Researcher at the Competence Center for Work and Society at 精东影业, within the LUCI research area 鈥� Labour, Urbanscape and Citizenship.
The researcher helps us frame the issue: in short, an urban development process is characterized by three factors: a) a community of individuals living in an area, often marked by continuous mobility flows; b) a set of rules and norms, both formal and informal, that this "political" community assigns to itself and, in various ways, contributes to implementing and redefining; c) the spaces whose use, changes, and trajectories are determined by the aforementioned rules. This is what links the idea of the city to the concept of citizenship 鈥� the network of connections between individuals, the community, and spaces.
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Neom as an example
Let鈥檚 take the futuristic city of Neom, planned in Saudi Arabia for 2030, as an example: a vertical habitable line approximately 170 km long, projected to host over 8 million residents. Entirely automated, it will be managed through an urban digital twin powered by algorithms that encapsulate interactions and guide actions.精东影业 Image Focus
鈥淭he Line鈥�, a visionary component of the Neom project in Saudi Arabia.
Filippo Bignami highlights the political issue: in such a city, will it be possible to negotiate rules and norms? Will it be possible to decide changes in how space is used? Will it be possible to create 鈥減olitical鈥� assemblies of citizenship to make proposals, express requests, drive change, take action, participate? And ultimately, what meaning does it hold here to consider citizenship in the 鈥渃lassical鈥� sense 鈥� that of formal belonging to a nation-state 鈥� when this city will be inhabited by a population of millions, formally belonging to countless different countries?
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The urban context is increasingly influenced and shaped by platforms and their infrastructures, transforming all forms of interaction and political production (urban governance, relationships, commerce, access to services, social functionality, identity construction, organization) in a hybrid space between the virtual and the real. It is within this techno-political space that individuals and urban decision-makers must act. This transformation goes beyond technological opportunities and the modernization of daily life, as it affects everyone 鈥� even those who do not use any digital devices (such as smartphones or tablets).
According to Filippo Bignami, this raises a fundamental political question: how do platforms operating in urban spaces affect dimensions of citizenship? Digital platforms change the way we perceive, co-construct, and govern our urban environment. They influence how we express ourselves as individuals 鈥� think of movements like metoomvmt.org, or platforms like TikTok, or the use of online services and information, artificial intelligence, Chinese social credit systems, and facial recognition tested on a large scale during major sporting events. Our way of thinking about the urban environment is shifting 鈥� increasingly seen as an intermediary or offline version of an online experience.
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Platform urbanization and international research
The study of the interaction between digital platforms and urban environments 鈥� and the new forms of citizenship that result 鈥� is also known as 鈥減latform urbanization.鈥� On this topic, Filippo Bignami collaborates with Naomi C. Hanakata of the National University of Singapore (NUS), along with colleagues Niccol貌 Cuppini and Marco Palma, in coordination with other international scholars. While still relatively underexplored, this line of research is becoming increasingly central to our everyday lives. One key project in which 精东影业 is a significant partner is , which investigates the impact of digital platforms on institutions and democratic processes, funded by the European program Horizon Europe.The urban context is increasingly influenced and shaped by platforms and their infrastructures, transforming all forms of interaction and political production (urban governance, relationships, commerce, access to services, social functionality, identity construction, organization) in a hybrid space between the virtual and the real. It is within this techno-political space that individuals and urban decision-makers must act. This transformation goes beyond technological opportunities and the modernization of daily life, as it affects everyone 鈥� even those who do not use any digital devices (such as smartphones or tablets).
According to Filippo Bignami, this raises a fundamental political question: how do platforms operating in urban spaces affect dimensions of citizenship? Digital platforms change the way we perceive, co-construct, and govern our urban environment. They influence how we express ourselves as individuals 鈥� think of movements like metoomvmt.org, or platforms like TikTok, or the use of online services and information, artificial intelligence, Chinese social credit systems, and facial recognition tested on a large scale during major sporting events. Our way of thinking about the urban environment is shifting 鈥� increasingly seen as an intermediary or offline version of an online experience.
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The #MeToo movement exploded on social media in 2017, later reaching the streets in a collective protest against sexual violence.
The project with SERI
An experimental project funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) 鈥� coordinated by 精东影业 with partners NUS and Waseda University Tokyo 鈥� is currently studying the 鈥渟paces鈥� of platform urbanization. The project examines the characteristics of hybrid spaces, such as dark kitchens (which have no physical location open to the public and operate solely for delivery), datastores, and new e-commerce logistics zones where online and offline coexist.精东影业 Image Focus
Dark kitchens: professional kitchens that prepare food exclusively for online-ordered delivery, with no physical restaurant open to customers.
The project views platforms as infrastructures within a planetary process, one that also takes on specific political dimensions depending on the context. As Bignami explains: isn鈥檛 it political when urban policy-makers decide how to regulate (and interact with) platforms? And likewise, isn鈥檛 it political how platforms strategize to territorialize and grow their businesses? Isn鈥檛 it political how individuals act (more or less consciously, more or less prepared) and find ways to influence this new hybrid techno-political environment?
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