ABSTRACT
This chapter explores cultural fantasies surrounding the metaphor of the “platform” and asks what forms of power does it sustain. It argues for a more nuanced understanding of “urbanism” in relation to platform capitalism. The chapter focuses on knowledge-power of urbanists-experts, and varieties of expertise that centre on platforms as a pivot of good urban governance. It draws on examples from contemporary urbanism spanning the fields of urban science, urban policy and urban design. The chapter argues that the platform has become compelling to urbanists of different kinds because it seemingly resolves the conundrum of governing but not determining cities. It discusses how to embrace the urban as a self-organizing, distributed and complex system, while preserving the expertise of urbanists to identify points of intervention, their competency to steer the system towards preferred vectors of change and their knowledge-power to govern urban complexity.
