How digital platforms are reshaping our cities

Anyone exploring a new city uses digital platforms. We decide where we want to drink coffee with Yelp, we find our way with Google Maps and a place to sleep with Airbnb. But while these platforms help us with this, they simultaneously change the city. Petter Törnberg (Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, University of Amsterdam) is researching exactly how. He received a Veni grant for his project 'Seeing the city through digital platforms'. Törnberg knows from personal experience about the consequences that platforms like Airbnb can have: he was evicted from the apartment in New York where he completed his thesis because the owner wanted to rent out the house through Airbnb since that would make him much more money. But the platforms not only have an economic impact, their algorithms and interfaces are also reshaping how we experience cities, how think about them and how we imagine them.