City as a Platform. Airbnb's Politics and its Effects on Urban Spaces and Cultures

Abstract

Using the critical key of platform capitalism, the paper relates the socio-economic transformations taking place in the cities and in the cultures of living with the interests of digital platform companies in urban space. The observation of economic, cultural and political processes in the field will be conducted starting from the Airbnb case, and proposing an interpretation of the platform as a new political actor, able to play a significant role in the city government, to activate the offline participation of its hosts and to promote the idea of a "platform citizenship".