Journal of Urban Affairs

Platform Gentrification: New Urban Inequalities in the Age of Digital Capitalism

Over the past decade, digital platforms have profoundly transformed how cities are inhabited, valued, and contested. Housing, mobility, work, and everyday interactions are increasingly mediated by digital infrastructures, giving rise to a new socio-technical regime of urban capitalism. This Special Issue introduces the concept of platform gentrification[1] to examine how traditional dynamics of capital reinvestment, socio-spatial displacement, and class restructuring are reorganized through platform logics.

We invite contributions that engage with this transversal process—one that connects algorithmic governance, platform-mediated labour, symbolic economies of place, and anticipatory displacement—in diverse urban contexts across the Global North and South.

Themes of Interest

·      Algorithmic financialization of housing markets

·      Mid-term rental platforms and hybrid tenancy regimes

·      The symbolic production of place through platforms (e.g. Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps)

·      Aesthetic homogenization and semiotic displacement

·      Tech workers, digital nomads, and emerging urban elites

·      Labour platforms and spatial segregation

·      Anticipatory, invisible, or algorithmic forms of displacement

·      Urban regulation, community resistance, and platform cooperativism

·      Methodologies for studying digital urban transformation and social change

[1] Sequera, J. (2025). Platform gentrification: The production of urban inequalities in the on-demand city. Open Research Europe, 5:147. https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.20362.1