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Articoli

N. 2 (2023)

Interfacciare lo spazio dei flussi e lo spazio dei luoghi nella società delle piattaforme. Dieci anni di Airbnb a Firenze

  • Antonello Romano
  • Cristina Capineri
  • Tiziano Bonini
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa2-2023oa15923
Inviata
19 maggio 2023
Pubblicato
30-05-2023

Abstract

Questo articolo prende in prestito i concetti di spazio dei flussi e spazio dei luoghi avanzati da Castells (1996) per sostenere che le piattaforme digitali svolgono il ruolo chiave di interfaccia, di medium, tra lo spazio dei luoghi e lo spazio dei flussi. Le piattaforme digitali, come Airbnb, possono infatti essere considerate come ‘orchestratori di reti’ che gestiscono i flussi di dati e informazioni prodotti dagli utenti (ospiti e Host) attraverso la piattaforma stessa. Per dimostrare come la combinazione di reti e luoghi impatti lo spazio urbano, abbiamo analizzato Airbnb come “un’interfaccia tra comunicazione elettronica e interazione fisica” e dimostrato l’utilità delle idee di Castells per esplorare l’impatto della piattaforma alla scala intra-urbana. Il contributo sviluppa un’analisi spazio-temporale di 12.126 annunci georeferenziati e 651.515 recensioni lasciate dagli utenti di Airbnb sulla piattaforma dal 2010 al 2019 a Firenze (Italia). In questo contesto, le recensioni agiscono come una camera d’eco per lo spazio dei flussi, forgiando alcune aree specifiche della città che soddisfano i requisiti della comunità Airbnb. Inoltre, la progressiva trasformazione di appartamenti privati in nodi della rete turistica globale crea una divisione spaziale sempre più frammentata tra porzioni di città connesse a livello globale e altri spazi geograficamente contigui ma non connessi. Tale processo è geograficamente disomogeneo e riproduce modelli ben noti di concentrazione del valore, in cui i simboli creano una realtà urbana virtualmente contraffatta, destinata ad imitare il luogo proiettato nella piattaforma.

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