A conceptual framework for understanding neighbourhoods in the digital age

Abstract

Digital platforms are a central infrastructure that has dramatically changed our daily lives. Like any other urban infrastructure and amenity, the digital platform has a heterogeneous influence on social groups. Studies exploring the influence of the digital on the mundane tend to focus on users, their socioeconomic status and their digital skills. However, digitisation is not an exogenous force; rather, it relates to culture and place. The departure point of this article is to conceptualise the idea of neighbourhood in the digital age, which offers a path towards understanding the role of the digital in our daily lives in relation to places. The article starts by discussing the neighbourhood and digitisation, addressing gaps and links that connect these themes. This discussion is followed by presentation of a framework linking the material with the virtual in understanding neighbourhoods. This framework is based on gathering data on four key issues: spatial configuration, digital infrastructure, demographic profile and digital participation in a neighbourhood. Jointly, these four issues are viewed as the means to contextualise and expand the way we think about the interplay between infrastructures and the agency of the neighbourhood’s inhabitants.