Digital Enclosure, Urban Rent, and Housing Justice: Toward a Political Ecology of Platform Urbanism

This paper examines platform urbanism through a political ecology of rent, arguing that digital platforms operate as rentier intermediaries that capture value through data extraction, digital enclosure, and controlled access. It shows how socially produced urban value is appropriated through rent, transforming socio-ecological conditions of urban life into rent-bearing assets. Using Naples as a strategic case, the paper highlights how platform-mediated restructuring intensifies housing vulnerability, displacement pressures, and socio-spatial conflict. It concludes that housing justice is a central terrain of socio-ecological struggle, and that contesting enclosure is crucial to defending the right to inhabit and reproduce urban life.