Geography & Environment Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-3-2024
Volume
114
Issue
5
Journal
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
First Page
1058
Last Page
1078
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2024.2322474
Abstract
This article engages with the spatialities of platform urbanism by foregrounding where digital platforms are located in cities. Drawing on a geocoded data set of visible, material traces of platformization collected across neighborhoods in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, we consider the influences that characteristics of urban built environments—including existing amenities, urban morphology, and area-level socioeconomic factors—have on platforms’ locations. Through a Poisson regression of these variables, we find that the presence of existing urban amenities most strongly explains the locations of material traces of urban platformization on the cityscape at the city block scale. We position platforms themselves as a novel amenity class that extends emplaced utility and lifestyle functions to urban residents. In so doing, we contend that the platformization of urban landscapes constitutes a form of “splintering amenitization,” wherein platformized urban amenities demonstrate spatial patterns of colocating with other, existing urban amenities in already amenity-rich areas to the exclusion of amenity-poor enclaves. This, we argue, is important because neighborhoods’ abilities to attract amenities are central to how enclaves both position themselves and compete for status within urban spatial hierarchies.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Notes
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Annals of the American Association of Geographers on 2024-04-03, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/24694452.2024.2322474.