New Article - Technocratic Urban Development: Large Digital Corporations as Power Brokers of the Digital Age

Earlier this year, Carr and Hesse published, "Technocratic Urban Development: Large Digital Corporations as Power Brokers of the Digital Age," in Planning Theory & Practice, VOL. 23, NO. 3, 476–485

"Large digital corporations like [Amazon and Google] are forging their central position in cities by asserting themselves as the sole providers of so-called essential urban infrastructures, i.e. new technologies. ... In this paper, we reflect on ..[a] .time period of dramatic infrastructural change in North American and European cities, and highlight the similarity between patterns of urban development at that time and those we see today unfolding under the leadership of LDCs, [and reflect] on the similarities in behaviour and styles of urban governance. We recall the American “tech giants” of the early to mid-20th century in the north-eastern United States and how they pushed for a certain spatial development, which for some represented the height of state-of-the-art innovation and modernity at the time. Robert Moses was one such 'giant'.... ” 

Read full article (open access) here.

Project announcement and welcome Dr. Olga Kryvets

 

Over the summer the Urban Studies Group was pleased to welcome Dr. Olga Kryvets from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Olga joined as a Research Scientist in July 2022 to work on the FNR-funded project entitled, "Gendered dimensions of digital urban development (GEN-DIGIURB), an add-on to DIGI-GOV. With an expertise in Gender Geography, Innovation Ecosystems and Urban Studies, Olga hopes to conduct research on gender dimensions across the institutional networks of the innovation economy, exploring the ways that emerging institutional networks of the innovation economy impact women, their opportunities and, by extension, overall socio-political and institutional patterns of contemporary digitalized urbanity. Her research aims to uncover the gendered dimensions of urban digitalization led by LDCs, and the innovation ecosystems in which they are embedded.