Smart City Gnosys

Smart city article details

Title	Localized Processes Of Platformization: The Example Of Surabaya
ID_Doc	35482
Authors	Renzi A.; Frenzel J.
Year	2025
Published	Big Data and Society, 12, 2
DOI	http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20539517251338776
Abstract	This article analyzes how universalist paradigms for platform urbanism are being adapted, modulated, and subverted through an evolving platform ecosystem that is specific to the city of Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city. We examine how processes of urban planning and city management are platformized, how specific groups of professionals and residents act as intermediaries between infrastructure and users and thereby facilitate the platformization process, and how these local iterations of platforms are informed by place-specific colonial and national history. By describing and tracing the genealogy of Surabaya's platform ecosystem, we demonstrate the specific ways in which it rationalizes city governance, shapes discourses on participatory citizenship and spatial planning, and redefine what counts as city infrastructure, innovation, and urban life in general. We argue that the modulation, adaptation, and resistance to platformization can only be understood by paying attention to the singularity of the milieu and tracing how visions of modernity and its sociotechnical assemblages are composed anew every time platform frameworks, tech tools, and discourses hit the ground. © The Author(s) 2025.
Author Keywords	decolonial studies; Indonesia; infrastructure; platform studies; Platformization; smart city

Similar Articles

Id	Similarity	Authors	Title	Published
29623	0.895	Das P.; Woods O.; Kong L.	Human Sensors In The City Of Super Apps: Mobilizing People As Infrastructure For Smart City Development In Jakarta, Indonesia	City, 28, 5-6 (2024)
56784	0.893	Klink J.; Tepassê Â.C.	The Smart City As The Factory Of The Twenty-First Century?: How Urban Platforms Reshape The Nexus Between The Built Environment, Livelihoods, And Labour	Routledge Handbook on Labour in Construction and Human Settlements: The Built Environment at Work (2023)
31799	0.893	Krisch A.	Institutionalizing Digital Infrastructures: Discursive Institutionalization Of Public Platforms In Vienna	European Journal of Spatial Development, 19, 3 (2022)
55494	0.889	Repette P.; Sabatini-Marques J.; Yigitcanlar T.; Sell D.; Costa E.	The Evolution Of City-As-A-Platform: Smart Urban Development Governance With Collective Knowledge-Based Platform Urbanism	Land, 10, 1 (2021)
42217	0.885	Caprotti F.; Liu D.	Platform Urbanism And The Chinese Smart City: The Co-Production And Territorialisation Of Hangzhou City Brain	GeoJournal, 87, 3 (2022)
48018	0.884	Qadri R.; D’Ignazio C.	Seeing Like A Driver: How Workers Repair, Resist, And Reinforce The Platform'S Algorithmic Visions	Big Data and Society, 9, 2 (2022)
56059	0.884	Allam Z.; Sharifi A.; Bibri S.E.; Jones D.S.; Krogstie J.	The Metaverse As A Virtual Form Of Smart Cities: Opportunities And Challenges For Environmental, Economic, And Social Sustainability In Urban Futures	Smart Cities, 5, 3 (2022)
51865	0.878	Abdouni L.	Smartifying [Informal] Cities Through Platform Urbanism	Smart Cities to Smart Societies: Moving beyond Technology (2025)
60	0.876	Mouton, M; Burns, R	(Digital) Neo-Colonialism In The Smart City	REGIONAL STUDIES, 55, 12 (2021)
49124	0.875	Freeman G.; Liu S.-Y.; Bardzell J.; Lu X.; Bardzell S.; Cao D.	Smart And Fermented Cities: An Approach To Placemaking In Urban Informatics	Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings (2019)