Interface: Planning, Land and Housing in the Digital Data Revolution

About Planning Theory & Practice and Interface

Planning Theory & Practice is the RTPI's internationally regarded research journal. Interface is a section within it which takes an original approach to stimulating critical and challenging debate between academics and practitioners on planning matters. 

Editors: Libby Porter, RMIT University

Authors: Libby Porter, Desiree Fields, Ani Landau-Ward, Dallas Rogers, Jathan Sadowski, Sophia Maalsen, Rob Kitchin, Oliver Dawkins, Gareth Young, and Lisa K Bates

Summary

In this Interface edition from 2019, edited by Libby Porter, researchers in the UK, Australia, the US and Ireland argue that the rise of digital technologies, Big Data, and PropTech is fundamentally reshaping land use, housing markets, and planning governance. Rather than simply improving existing processes, digital platforms and data infrastructures are actively restructuring how urban systems function by accelerating financialisation, enabling new global investment flows, and transforming housing into a financial asset.

Platforms such as Airbnb and Uber illustrate how digital tools decouple economic activity from physical place, creating new relationships between actors while extending the reach of capital into the daily life of ordinary people. At the same time, the rapid expansion of data generation and analytics is enabling new forms of market prediction and behavioural influence, reinforcing the role of data as a key driver of value creation and urban change.

Key issues discussed centre on governance, regulation, and equity. The difficulties planners face in regulating platform-based and data-driven systems are linked to asymmetries in data ownership and access, as well as the detachment of digital firms from local accountability. The essays also raise concerns around privacy, surveillance, and algorithmic bias, noting how data-driven decision-making can reproduce or intensify social inequalities across race, class, and housing access.

As Porter explains in her introduction, the first three essays offer different views of the rapid transformation of housing patterns due to digitisation. Fields begins by providing a critical overview of how to understand PropTech as a phenomena and then offers in-depth insights on how applications are producing social bias in US housing markets. Landau-Ward and Porter then examine the emergence of a range of PropTech applications and their influence on the severe affordable housing crisis in Melbourne. Rogers, Sadowski and Maalsen in their essay consider similar trends of digital housing on the rental bond system in Sydney, and how this is affecting tenant rights and advocacy.

Shifting the focus to the Big Data that such applications produce, Kitchin, Dawkins and Young present insights from their research to develop an ‘intelligent planning system’ in Ireland and the barriers and challenges from a Big Data perspective that such a project entails. They argue that technologies like GIS, AI, and digital twins can enhance evidence-based planning, but can only support rather than replace planners, who must guide their use. Bates then presents research from Portland US showing how the availability of data is a primary problem for equity planning, precisely because such data is owned by private real estate companies.

Together, the contributions show how the impact of the digital revolution on housing holds major implications for planning. 

This Interface includes the following contributions:

1. ‘The Politics of Digital Transformations of Housing’, Desiree Fields, University of Sheffield
2. ‘Digital Innovations, PropTech and Housing – the View from Melbourne’, Ani Landau-Ward and Libby Porter, RMIT University.
3. ‘Digital Housing and Renters: Disrupting the Australian Rental Bond System and Tenant Advocacy’, Dallas Rogers, Jathan Sadowski and Sophia Maalsen, University of Sydney.
4. ‘Prospects for an Intelligent Planning System’, Rob Kitchin, Oliver Dawkins and Gareth Young, Maynooth University.
5. ‘What are the Prospects for a Politically Intelligent Planning System?’, Lisa K. Bates, Portland State University.

Full reference

Porter, L. et al. (2019) ‘Planning, Land and Housing in the Digital Data Revolution/The Politics of Digital Transformations of Housing/Digital Innovations, PropTech and Housing – the View from Melbourne/Digital Housing and Renters: Disrupting the Australian Rental Bond System and Tenant Advocacy/Prospects for an Intelligent Planning System/What are the Prospects for a Politically Intelligent Planning System?’, Planning Theory & Practice, 20(4), pp. 575–603. doi: 10.1080/14649357.2019.1651997

The summary of this interface collection was created with the help of Copilot (basic).