VISUALISING 10 THOUSAND CITIES? UBER'S DATA STORIES ON KNOWING URBAN SPACE

Abstract

In 2020, Uber celebrated its presence in over 10.000 cities around the world. Such global scaling and granular infiltration of algorithmic-powered management of labour and urban dynamics are achieved through efforts to datafy and visualise cities, making them intelligible under a unified vision. While workers on the ground precariously move across territories, Uber’s engineering teams invest in abstract and disembodied views of the city. Taking Uber’s knowledge production about cities as an object of inquiry, this paper explores the epistemic dimensions of platformisation, delving into platforms' technical and narrative reliance on datafication. Through the analysis of 41 publications on Uber Engineering Blog (UEB), it delves into Uber's textual and visual data stories on knowing cities, highlighting the contrast between a lively community of practitioners and industry, and the neglect in acknowledging platform workers' labour and needs.