{"title":"Smart City Toronto: Extraction, Enclosure, Rentier Capitalism","authors":"Barbara L. Jenkins","doi":"10.22230/cjc.2022v47n2a4185","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Background: The failure of Sidewalk Labs’ smart city initiative in Toronto provides insight into the imperatives and contradictions of platform capitalism. Analysis: A political economy analysis reveals why this Alphabet subsidiary sought to expand the project beyond the parameters of the initial plan, stepping into a vacuum created by neoliberal forms of governance. Ultimately, the company’s expansionism resulted in a political backlash that scuttled the plan. Conclusion and implications: This case study highlights the political contradictions of platform capitalism, emphasizing the diversification of corporate strategies characterized by the extraction of data, enclosure of platforms, and accumulation of rentier profits.","PeriodicalId":45663,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Journal of Communication","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2022v47n2a4185","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Background: The failure of Sidewalk Labs’ smart city initiative in Toronto provides insight into the imperatives and contradictions of platform capitalism. Analysis: A political economy analysis reveals why this Alphabet subsidiary sought to expand the project beyond the parameters of the initial plan, stepping into a vacuum created by neoliberal forms of governance. Ultimately, the company’s expansionism resulted in a political backlash that scuttled the plan. Conclusion and implications: This case study highlights the political contradictions of platform capitalism, emphasizing the diversification of corporate strategies characterized by the extraction of data, enclosure of platforms, and accumulation of rentier profits.
期刊介绍：
The objective of the Canadian Journal of Communication is to publish Canadian research and scholarship in the field of communication studies. In pursuing this objective, particular attention is paid to research that has a distinctive Canadian flavour by virtue of choice of topic or by drawing on the legacy of Canadian theory and research. The purview of the journal is the entire field of communication studies as practiced in Canada or with relevance to Canada. The Canadian Journal of Communication is a print and online quarterly. Back issues are accessible with a 12 month delay as Open Access with a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Access to the most recent year''s issues, including the current issue, requires a subscription. Subscribers now have access to all issues online from Volume 1, Issue 1 (1974) to the most recently published issue.
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