Infrastructuration and spatial governance: Why Google is not just another service provider

Nancy Odendaal
Additional contact information
Nancy Odendaal: University of Cape Town, South Africa

Urban Studies, 2025, vol. 62, issue 13, 2716-2721

Abstract: In an era of platform governance and artificial intelligence, it is important to consider the social and political impacts of technology multinational power. In this piece, Google, as a platform and as an infrastructure, is explored in relation to spatial governance. The term infrastructuration (developed by Paul Edwards) is used to explore how the implementation of urban services is accompanied by the generation of norms, codes, and processes that are deeply political and potentially resistant to change, once embedded. The argument is made that this impact is systemic in the creation of a socio-technical dynamic that could solidify into structural inertia.

Keywords: Google; infrastructure; platform; urban form; urban governance; è°·æ­Œ; 基础设施; å¹³å °; 城市形æ€; åŸŽå¸‚æ²»ç † (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980251359476 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:62:y:2025:i:13:p:2716-2721

DOI: 10.1177/00420980251359476

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().