This chapter unpacks a particular aspect of the emerging urban digital platform: the coming together of digital tools, digital/data activism and political asymmetries in both re-imagining and re-making the city’s environment. Worldwide, the work of civic hackers, hackathons and other forms of data activism has eventually led to a range of city platforms—from municipal open data platforms to commercial and non-commercial applications (Luque-Ayala and Marvin, 2020). These platforms intervene in diverse urban issues, such as transport, public safety, citizen engagement and waste management. We argue that data activism and digital interventions prefigure urban platforms both materially and in terms of their political orientation. While not all digital platforms have roots in civic tech, we suggest that within practices of digital and data activism in cities there are always a range of platforms in the making.

 

LUQUE-AYALA, Andrés. et al. Platforms in the making: Hacking the urban environment in Brazilian cities. Em: HODSON, M. et al. (org.). Urban Platforms and the Future City. London: Routledge, 2020. v. 1, p. 292.