The urban-tech feedback loop

A surveillance and development data-walk in South Lake Union

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Mahmoudi, Dillon, Anthony Levenda, and Alicia Sabatino. 2024. “The urban-tech feedback loop: A surveillance and development data-walk in South Lake Union.” Digital Geography and Society 7 (December): 100106. doi:10.1016/j.diggeo.2024.100106. Digital Geography & Society open access

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Abstract

In this research article, we employed an autoethnographic data-walk methodology to explore the complex relationship between urban spaces and digital data collection, using the South Lake Union neighborhood as a case study. We examined how major technology companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and various property developers leverage the dual forces of urbanization and data gathering to shape urban environments in ways that serve their interests. Our key contribution lies in uncovering the power dynamics at play, where tech companies exert significant influence over urban planning and governance, reshaping cities into spaces designed for surveillance and commodification. In areas like South Lake Union, the redevelopment into numerous small storefronts enables the granular tracking of consumer behavior, turning everyday activities into data that fuels targeted advertising and capital accumulation. We identify two central insights. First, data-walks offer a way to “story” the influence of tech corporations on urban spaces from the perspective of everyday experiences. While digital data collection is integral to capital accumulation, the process is uneven and must be viewed from various angles—including from the perspective of everyday life—to fully understand the emerging inequalities. Second, we argue that the transformation of urban environments under tech capitalism exacerbates existing social and spatial inequalities while generating new ones. The commodified surveillance of daily activities and consumption not only drives data accumulation but also reshapes the physical and social fabric of the city. This work serves as an initial step in challenging these unequal processes of surveillance-driven urban development.

Summary

Tech capitalism thrives on a perpetual feedback loop of data appropriation and commodification, made possible by the normalization of surveillance and datafication. The physical landscape of the city, designed to meet the preferences of these ‘ideal’ consumers, entrenches the power of large tech companies in urban governance and development.

Cities are increasingly shaped by the invisible hand of tech capitalism, where digital data collection and urban development reinforce one another in a feedback loop. In our research, we used a “data-walk” methodology—a way of walking through urban spaces to observe how data is collected and commodified—to explore how everyday human behaviors are captured by tech platforms and fed back into the design of urban environments. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook benefit from this loop: consumer behaviors, tracked through smartphones, inform the creation of urban spaces that cater to affluent “ideal” users. These spaces, in turn, encourage more consumption, enriching tech firms and deepening inequalities in who cities are built to serve.

We contend that the data-walk is a powerful tool for ‘storying’ platform urbanism by grounding the abstract processes of data capture, commodification, and use in the everyday practices of movement and consumption.

This process is far from neutral. The built environment, shaped by alliances between tech giants and property developers, reflects and amplifies the power of digital capital. Spaces like Seattle’s South Lake Union, a hub of tech innovation, are reconfigured to prioritize the preferences of middle- and upper-class consumers while excluding marginalized communities. Our data-walk highlighted how surveillance and volunteered data—from taking a photo to using a rideshare app—are central to these transformations, creating a city “in the image” of tech capital. To challenge this system, we argue for expanding data-walk methodologies to include diverse perspectives, capturing the voices of those often excluded from urban development decisions. By doing so, we can begin to disrupt the loop that commodifies everyday life and entrenches tech power in urban governance.