Dr Rachel Macrorie
Small Group Project 2018
Toward a Platform Urbanism Agenda for Urban Studies
With Desiree Fields
This research sets out to develop the concept of ‘platform urbanism’ and inaugurate it as a research agenda within urban studies. The project asserts that although digital platforms both depend, and have explicit effects, on the urban, urban studies has not comprehensively investigated these emerging infrastructures. Meanwhile other disciplines are making theoretical advances by conceiving of society and capitalism in relation to platforms. However, such work frequently fails to engage with the materiality of the city, the spatiality of digital platforms, and platform-related governance effects.
More informationResearch outcomes
URBAN ECOLOGICAL FUTURES: Five Eco‐Community Strategies for more Sustainable and Equitable Cities. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 48(1), 161-176.
Platform methods: studying platform urbanism outside the black box. Urban Geography, 41(3), 462-468.
Areas of interest
Cohort
Biography
She is a critical urban and environmental geographer whose broad research agenda focuses on the governance, politics and practices of urban transformations to decarbonised and equitable economies and societies.
Her research spans multiple urban domains; primarily the built environment, but also, energy and heat, water and waste services, and digital, platformised, and robotic infrastructures. She researches across multiple governance levels (from national government to the individual landlord and housing tenant) and works with diverse types of stakeholders (public institutions, private industry and the third sector).
Biographical details correct as of 11.05.26