scholarly journals Platform economies and urban planning: Airbnb and regulated deregulation in London

Urban Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (15) ◽  
pp. 3353-3368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara Ferreri ◽  
Romola Sanyal

The ‘sharing economy’ has become a new buzzword in urban life as digital technology companies set up online platforms to link together people and un- or underutilised assets with those seeking to rent them for short periods of time. While cloaked under the rhetoric of ‘sharing’, the exchanges they foster are usually profit-driven. These economic activities are having profound impacts on urban environments as they disrupt traditional forms of hospitality, transport, service industry and housing. While critical debates have focused on the challenges that sharing economy activities bring to existing labour and economic practices, it is necessary to acknowledge that they also have increasingly significant impacts on planning policy and urban governance. Using the case of Airbnb in London, this article looks at how these sharing or platform economy companies are involved in encouraging governments to change existing regulations, in this case by deregulating short-term letting. This has important implications for planning enforcement. We examine how the challenges around obtaining data to enforce new regulations are being addressed by local councils who struggle to balance corporate interests with public good. Finally, we address proposals for using algorithms and big data as means of urban governance and argue that the schism between regulation and enforcement is opening up new digitally mediated spaces of informal practices in cities.

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 904-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACOB NERENBERG

AbstractWhat kinds of governance agendas emerge at frontiers of commercial expansion, where routine economic relations traverse differences of ethnicity and degrees of formality? In the Balim Valley in the highlands of Indonesia's easternmost Papua province, mobilities and trade intersect at adjoining peri-urban markets and minivan terminals. The ‘terminal economy’ at the edges of Wamena, the region's bustling hub, is a threshold between rural and urban life, where indigenous livelihoods are subordinated to Indonesia's expanding commercial networks. Here, a cosmopolitan population—including indigenous Papuan highlanders and newcomer merchants from distant Indonesian regions—gathers to buy and sell local horticultural produce and imported commodities, transit between modes of transportation, and engage in a variety of formal and informal economic activities. This article traces the emergence of a multifaceted commercial regulation agenda, in the wake of demands for the recognition of indigenous contributions to the regional economy. It considers recent indigenous-formulated regulation policies in the context of the region's commercial history, one that is marked by a colonial devaluation of indigenous economic life and, more recently, by uprisings, inter-ethnic tensions, and government attempts to control and contain informal vending. The article conceptualizes commercial regulation as a convergence between efforts to contain disruption and demands for the revaluation of marginalized economic practices. It argues that commercial regulation is especially salient in regions that have been relegated to an end-point position in national and global commodity distribution paths.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 800-821
Author(s):  
E.V. Popov ◽  
K.A. Semyachkov

Subject. The article addresses economic relations that are formed in various areas of economic application of digital platforms. The target of the research is the modern economy of digital platforms across different economic activities. Objectives. The aim is to systematize principles for share economy formation in the context of the digital society development. Methods. We employ general scientific methods of research. Results. The study shows that the development of digital platforms is one of the most important trends in the development of the modern economy. We classified certain characteristic features of modern digital platforms, analyzed principles for their creation. The paper emphasizes that the network effects achieved through the use of digital platforms are an important factor in the development of the share economy. The network effect describes the impact of the number of the platform users on the value created for each of them. The paper also considers differences in the organization of traditional economy companies and companies that are based on the digital platform model, reveals specifics of changes in socio-economic systems caused by the development of digital platforms, systematizes principles of the sharing economy formation in the context of the digital society development. Conclusions. The analyzed principles for sharing economy development on the basis of digital platforms can be applied to create models for the purpose of forecasting the transformation of economic activity in the post-industrial society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4875
Author(s):  
Barry Hayes ◽  
Dorota Kamrowska-Zaluska ◽  
Aleksandar Petrovski ◽  
Cristina Jiménez-Pulido

This work discusses recent developments in sharing economy concepts and collaborative co-design technology platforms applied in districts and cities. These developments are being driven both by new technological advances and by increased environmental awareness. The paper begins by outlining the state of the art in smart technology platforms for collaborative urban design, highlighting a number of recent examples. The case of peer-to-peer trading platforms applied in the energy sector is then used to illustrate how sharing economy concepts and their enabling technologies can accelerate efforts towards more sustainable urban environments. It was found that smart technology platforms can encourage peer-to-peer and collaborative activity, and may have a profound influence on the future development of cities. Many of the research and development projects in this area to date have focused on demonstrations at the building, neighbourhood, and local community scales. Scaling these sharing economy platforms up to the city scale and beyond has the potential to provide a number of positive environment impacts. However, significant technical and regulatory barriers to wider implementation exist, and realising this potential will require radical new approaches to the ownership and governance of urban infrastructure. This paper provides a concise overview of the state of the art in this emerging field, with the aim of identifying the most promising areas for further research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-222
Author(s):  
Karima Kourtit

AbstractThe contemporary ‘digital age’ prompts the need for a re-assessment of urban planning principles and practices. Against the background of current data-rich urban planning, this study seeks to address the question whether an appropriate methodological underpinning can be provided for smart city governance based on a data-driven planning perspective. It posits that the current digital technology age has a drastic impact on city strategies and calls for a multi-faceted perspective on future urban development, termed here the ‘XXQ-principle’ (which seeks to attain the highest possible level of quality for urban life). Heterogeneity in urban objectives and data embodied in the XXQ-principle can be systematically addressed by a process of data decomposition (based on a ‘cascade principle’), so that first, higher-level urban policy domains are equipped with the necessary (‘big’) data provisions, followed by lower-ranking urban governance levels. The conceptual decomposition principle can then be translated into a comprehensive hierarchical model architecture for urban intelligence based on the ‘flying disc’ model, including key performance indicators (KPIs). This new model maps out the socio-economic arena of a complex urban system according to the above cascade system. The design of this urban system architecture and the complex mutual connections between its subsystems is based on the ‘blowing-up’ principle that originates from a methodological deconstruction-reconstruction paradigm in the social sciences. The paper advocates the systematic application of this principle to enhance the performance of smart cities, called the XXQ performance value. This study is not empirical, although it is inspired by a wealth of previous empirical research. It aims to advance conceptual and methodological thinking on principles of smart urban planning.


Urban Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Durante ◽  
Margherita Turvani

Sharing economy platforms enabled by information and communication technologies (ICTs) are facilitating the diffusion of collaborative workplaces. Coworking spaces are emerging as a distinctive phenomenon in this context, not only fostering knowledge transfer and facilitating innovation, but also affecting the urban and socio-economic fabric contributing to urban regeneration processes at both the local scale and the city scale. Although the positive impacts of coworking on the urban environment are documented, there is still little or no evidence of the economic viability of coworking businesses, and a “coworking bubble” has been evoked. Given the lack of data, a national survey was set up of Italian coworking businesses, aimed at assessing the relevance of internal organizational factors (size, occupancy, profitability, services provided) for the sustainability of coworking businesses. By presenting the results of the survey, we argue that the sustainability and viability of the coworking model is highly dependent on internal factors, strictly related to the entrepreneurial action of coworking managers.


10.29007/cfr2 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zunoon Parambath ◽  
Nilupa Udawatta

Recession is considered as a major threat to the economy as it slows down economic activities. The property development sector is extremely responsive to these economic conditions. Thus, it is crucial to understand causes, effects and strategies for property developers to survive in a recession without any ill effects. Thus, this research aimed to develop a framework for property developers to identify appropriate survival strategies in recession. A comprehensive literature review was conducted in this research to achieve the above mentioned aim. The results of this study indicated that recession prompts negative impacts on property development sector resulting in unemployment, lower demand, production and revenue, decline in resources and high level of competition. According to the results, the survival strategies were classified into short-term and long-term strategies. The short term strategies include: implementing management tactics, cut down of operating costs, keeping financing lines set up, timely repayment of debts, setting vital new objectives for the future, undertaking shorter time span developments, specialisation in favoured market, renegotiating deals and contracts. The long-term strategies include retrenchment, restructuring, investment and ambidextrous strategies. Similarly, attention should be paid to predict any changes in the economic environment that can influence property development activities and it is necessary to carefully evaluate investment activities to increase sales, profits and market shares of property developers. Preparing for a crisis is doubtlessly the ideal approach as it can facilitate both survival and growth. Thus, the property developers can implement these suggested strategies in their businesses to enhance their practices.


Author(s):  
Liher Pillado Arbide ◽  
Ander Etxeberria Aranburu ◽  
Giovanni Tokarski

Traditional labour relationships have been disrupted due to the digital platforms based businesses. This article aims on the one hand to share the consequences the sharing economy has generated for workers, and how MONDRAGON’s principles as one of the best examples of worker owned business group in the world, can be applied within the new digital era. On the other hand, this paper provides a literature review on how digital platforms can operate with fairer principles based on the framework that platform coops consist of. Last but not least, Mondragon University and The New School have set up a capacity building program on team entrepreneurship and an online incubation program that aims to support the creation of platform coops, whose results after two editions and future opportunities for research are shared.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Di Qu ◽  
Dianya Deng

Currently, the development of sharing economy and interconnection also has a profound impact on community life services. This study is based on the deep neural network theory, combined with the evolution mechanism of the commercial network of the community life service industry, link prediction theory, and the latest deep neural network algorithm, referring to the evolution model of merger and stripping, and the network structure is optimized on this basis. Through simulation experiments and result analysis, the model is used to deeply study the evolution trend and dynamics of the community life service business network from the perspective of quantitative analysis. Then the business network structure is optimized and development is promoted at the same time. At the same time, it can also upgrade those old scattered industries and provide theoretical and decision-making guidance for the future transformation and upgrading of the innovative community life service industry.


2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1258-1276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debarshi Guin

Contemporary urbanization in India is in transition and this, along with the continuation of a ‘top heavy’ urban structure and gradual deindustrialization, is characterized by faster growth of informal employment, a declining trend of urban-ward migration of males, the slow down in the growth of cities and towns and the emergence of new urban centres. Given this immediate backdrop, this paper examines the contemporary processes and emerging forms of urban transition in West Bengal, with its longstanding history of ‘mono-centric’ urbanization. It reveals that urbanization in the state is no longer confined to a few pockets, as many new urban centres have emerged away from them and small towns are growing at relatively faster rates compared to the cities. But the underlying factors of this transition are not associated with the dispersal of economic activities and employment opportunities away from the metropolises. Furthermore, the study is sceptical about the significance of this emerging form of urbanization fuelled by the growth of small cities and towns which have a weak economic base, a crisis of urban governance and inadequate access to basic amenities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Muñoz

During the past 20 years, street vendors in various cities in the Global South have resisted aggressive state sanctioned removals and relocation strategies by organizing for vendors’ rights, protesting, and creating street vending member organizations with flexible relationships to the local state. Through these means, street vendors claim “rights in the city,” even as the bodies they inhabit and the spaces they produce are devalued by state legitimizing systems. In this article, I present a case study of the Union de Tianguistas y Comerciantes Ambulantes del Estado de Quintana Roo, a “bottom-up” driven, flexible street vending membership organization not formalized by the state in Cancún. I argue that the Union becomes a platform for street vendors to claim rights to the city, and exemplifies vending systems that combine economic activities with leisure spaces in marginalized urban areas, and circumvent strict vending regulations without being absorbed into or directly monitored by the state. Highlighting the Union’s sustainable practices of spatial transformation, and vision of self-managed spaces of socioeconomic urban life in Cancún, illuminates how the members of the Union claim rights to the city as an example of a process of awakening toward imagining possibilities for urban futures that moves away from the state and capitalists systems, and akin to what Lefebvre termed autogestion toward resisting neoliberal ideologies that currently dominate urban planning projects in the Global South.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document